Trauma Work Summer Was Actually Kinda Lovely, Part Four

I couldn't get her to come make art very often, but she sat by me the morning we did August Valentines! This is one of mine though.    

Today Update: As soon as I extricated myself from the impossible situation I helped create, the warmth of just a few weeks ago came back to me. 

*****

For the past couple summers, I've worked in a summer camp across town. It almost always felt like a paradise, the kids running to-and-fro making up weird games while my friends and I overshared out of earshot. Some mornings,  I sat outside with my ice coffee and my emotional support Squishmallow and just enjoyed the trees. We made art almost constantly and Karaoke day was practically a religious experience. 

The campers' emotions were always in flux, big to small, melting down to happily flying a literal kite. My emotions moved with theirs sometimes, and the quick shifts could get overwhelming.

On the bench at the side of the playground is where I got to know Summer Princess. Tall, dark-skinned and soft-cheeked, she was instantly endearing to me. She was new but jumped into the camp tradition of the overshare right away. For me, it was probably love at first overshare. A thunderclap of a bond, but playful. Easy most of the time.

I liked the very quick moment when we showed off the lacy tops of our bras to each other. She was kind to my spectrumness, listened patiently to the story of how I became a collector of lingerie and how I need bras with more structure these days because of gravity.

We talked about relationships, of course--pretty sure I'm the one that started down that road. I loved hearing about her adorable fiancee and their poly misadventures. Within three days of working together, Summer Princess was inviting me to their wedding.

Pretty soon, we were hugging hello, goodbye, and as needed. 

"You're soft," she said one of the first times we hugged.

Once I said "Wait I think I already told you this story." and she said

"Tell me again." *dies of swooning*

When I complained about guys, she said "You should try a princess instead."

Once I was sitting on the employees couch near the end of a long day and she brought me a chair so I could put up my feet. I didn't ask her to, she just did!

Once, she offered to carry one of my bags to the car even though none of my bags were heavy. I think she just wanted to be with me a little longer, like I was an emotional support human. "Goodbye loves," said a coworker from across the street.

We spent part of one afternoon trying to sneak my Squishmallow over to each other undetected, my heart got all unlatched from all the silliness and giggles.

The day before she turned 26, I had the kids all make her cards and little crafty gifts. One girl made her a 3-D present box just out of regular paper and tape! Craft supplies were never limited to their intended use!

Oh my goodness, I loved this girl so much, and it was hard to keep my imagination from dreaming up lots of knotty Ma'am scenarios for her. I wanted to take care of her, to take her to the beach, to give her whatever she ever wanted.

Now, today, she's probably wigged out by me and her fiancee definitely has threatened to hunt me down. So I'm surprised to find so much warmth, joy, affection, and innocence in these paragraphs. I'm glowing with it, even though she's gone.

The Kindest Hookup, Part One

 

This story starts with a trigger warning, but not about the date!

Last Tuesday was my birthday. In the course of checking in with loved ones, I found out that someone close to me had had The Bad Thing happen to her on a date over the summer. I was glad she trusted me enough to tell me, and she seemed like she was doing okay, considering. But I was devastated and wondered if I needed to cancel my Wednesday night date! It seemed unfair to have any kind of body fun in the same world where a loved one had been so harmed.

But I knew it wasn’t bodies’ fault, and I was reasonably sure this guy was good and safe. He’s 27, so I figured he had matched with me purely for curiosity/millennials-have-a-mature-fetish reasons, but he seemed genuinely interested in me as a person. We talked about books and he’s reading The Sum of Us. One of my all-time favorites! We exchanged Spotify links and he picked two favorites from my Virgo Season mix: Good Riddance (see above) and Always Something There to Remind Me.

And he was calling me Ma’am! And being so kind and respectful! His smile was radiant and, in mostly chaste pictures, the rest of him was beautiful. I was touched by his attentiveness and turned on by his beauty and bravery. The energy emerging between us reminded me of The Good Boy from 2022—warm, avid, and Mine.

When he asked if there was anything he needed to do for the date, I said “Bring flowers.” Ma’am life is so good, especially during my birthday week!

He came up my driveway with two long bunches of flowers (pink alstroemeria and purple something-like-delphiniums) and a birthday card with no envelope. He looked so happy and hopeful and ready for praise—deeply adorable. We walked arm-in-arm up the driveway to my door, and went in.

He’d wanted me to sweep him in the door and take charge right way, and I don’t think I did it the way he’d pictured! I told him to have a seat while I put the flowers in some water. When I joined him on the couch, he said eagerly “What do you want me to do?”

“Let’s just sit here and be people”

So we talked about shows. I inexpertly summarized the plot of Yellowjackets and rhapsodized about how it’s almost Gilmore Girls time. (The twenty-first night of September!) He mentioned loving Rick and Morty and old seasons of South Park and I put those upsetting choices in his file but didn’t hold them against him. I wanted to hold myself against him!

We were in the middle of a (Try not to think about the end of the world!) heatwave so everything was warmth on warmth on warmth. He kissed me in the middle of our TV conversation and it sent flutters up through me—just right. An of course whispered through my body. I have been truly blessed with the good kissers lately. If I believed in Karma, I would think I was being very, very rewarded for some good deed I can’t quite think of.

“What do you want me to do now?” He asked again. Look up “topping from the bottom” in the dictionary and there’s his beautiful smiling face!

“Five more minutes,” I said, and we stayed there on the couch, chatting and kissing.

The Good Boy: Part Three (In Which I FAVORABLY Compare His Dick to Famous Works of Art)

Trying to write about him lying supine and not-quite-passive, in a harness and black briefs, obviously hard and temptingly huge, makes me flustered and so close to losing the actual use of words.

As I pulled the rope tightly/gently around his inner thigh, I asked if it felt okay. He smirked and said I better check again, so I did, lightly grazing the valley between his thigh and his dick. A jolt went through me, temporarily deleting my knowledge of knots and everything else, but I righted myself and kept laddering.

I felt powerful and benevolent sitting over him, turned on but super-focused on the ropes at hand. I rhythmically twined over and under his pretty legs, holding the square shape in place, winding on to the next rung. When I neared his left ankle he said, with the teensiest bit of irritation, “Can this be done now?”

So I tied off the rope and climbed on to kiss him. He had so many loose ends, ropes of different colors, strands I’d meant to weave in with the rest. He was a bed of soft vines.

We ended up in a delicious cuddle. As he spooned up sweetly I said “Hmmmmm, it doesn’t really seem like you’ve submitted.” His tenderness was urgent, emphatic. This was not a Helpless Boy.

“Do you think you could spank a person?” I asked, rolling onto my belly. My velvet pants had been discarded a while ago, and I was wearing raspberry-colored lacy soft briefs.

Friends, he CAN spank a person, each impact hitting at the exact right angle, the exact right strength. When he was ready to move on from spanking, he spread himself aaaaalllllll the way over me, arms over my arms, holding me down so kindly. He was grinding his huge, hard dick against my ass crack, hitting all the spots at once. The Good Boy had gone a little animalistic and I could NOT have been happier.

“Okay, I’m gonna need to turn over.” I said.

So. I’m a size queen, we kind of know that already. Recently I was even brazen enough to add that preference to my profile, even though it seems unfair to all the other dicks. The Good Boy’s dick IS unfair to all the other ones. Thick, long, and curving upwards, it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my entire art history major LIFE. Starry Night? Please. Duchamp’s Large Glass—so pretty and thought provoking and also on the themes of energy and inspiration, but no. Yoko Ono’s Yes Painting? Okay, maybe that one compares.

Anyway, BEAUTIFUL. And about to be entirely mine.

The Good Boy, Part Two

 

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.

 

The Good Boy, Part One

 

This is the part where I’m afraid I’m gonna write a good thing out of existence. For me, there’s warm feelings. For him, there’s a bouquet of New Things and he’s not sure what it is, just that he likes it. This is the part where I want to RUN, either at him, or away. I asked BFF-Formerly-Sweetie if I should say goodbye now to keep my heart from getting broken, and she said “(My name) it’s too late.”

So let me make the paragraphs happen even though I might be heartbroken by the last installment. Otherwise, I’m just getting too far behind.

When I saw that we’d matched on Feeld, his sweet, sincere face, his shiny eyes, and the fact that he listed “sub” under his interests, all those factors meant I kinda had to say hello. After my now-boilerplate screening questions (Vaccinated? Allergic to cats? Smoke cigarettes? (Weed is fine.) Somewhere to the left of Joseph Robinette Biden?) I asked if he might like to try ropes, and that was pretty much that.

The Good Boy is a very sweet texter, and before we met in person, I started to float up towards a new kind of rope-top confidence. He felt proctectable, deferent, and dear. This exchange felt so much kinder, safer, and more sincere than the more rough, businesslike text negotiations I also sometimes enjoy. I slipped into cozy-Ma’amness in just a few days. We’d planned two dates before we even had one.

He's twenty-nine, brand-new to any kind of poly relationships (His main partner…onboarded? him not too long ago.) or kink. In spite of the inexperience, though, he’s very adept at the parts of dating that make partners feel like human beings. (Last night, (two dates in) I was feeling supersleepy and he text-reminded me to make sure I slept in bed and not the couch. Kind.)

The day of our first date (couch/ropes/pink wine), I realized I’d run out of Valentine chocolate and asked him to bring me some. Somehow, that ask was a million times more vulnerable than talking about ropes. But he did. He brought a pink heart full of pink heart chocolates.

After a nice long talk on the couch with our wine, it was time to take him upstairs for ropes. I’ll try to get that part into words soon, I promise.

 

Staycation Sext Fling Part Three: I Recognize That Tree

I was looking for the original Blair Witch quote, but Lorelai makes it even more apt.

The last time The Coach and I text-played, he called me Ma’am and for a second I got so swoony that I had to make him tell me what should happen next. Once I regained my senses and my upper hand, we wrote through a quick but very sweet scene of me tying him to the bedframe with my pretty pink ropes. There wasn’t much chance of not having warm feelings after that! Getting Ma’am-ed woke up so much nurturing, protectiveness, and not-that-gentle gentleness in me. I guess I knew that was out of place in such a casual arrangement.

The next night was one where he didn’t text, and I ached to hear from him, literally felt a literal ache in my abdomen waiting/hoping for that little red text-notification number. I could have texted him I guess, but I didn’t want to be stepping on any other lady’s time and sure didn’t want the comparison if he was busy with someone younger, prettier, and (somehow!) more game.

My brain does this thing when I’m not hearing from someone I like, creates a whole cast of characters for them, each partner more beautiful and experienced and slutty-in-the-right-way than the next. This is almost never a slut-shaming feeling, I’m always happy for them and the adventures I’m imagining for them. I just don’t ever understand how I could keep up or fit in.

So I knew it was time to get oriented, to find out who the other partners were, to check in about the Ma’am stuff, to generally hang out and be humans together. I also knew that kind of an interaction might already be off the table.

So I asked if he wanted to go for a walk or a drink sometime so I could get to know him better. He took it as me asking him on a date (I guess it like 40% was.) and balked. I’d been pretty sure he only wanted me for strictly sexy times, and now I knew I was right.

It ended very kindly this time, to the point where I could feel a little of the Trump-era defensiveness we started this acquaintance with leave my body a little. He texted some very sweet “it’s not you, it’s me” type stuff that made me like him (and want to be Ma’am-ed by him) even more. While we texted it through on my morning walk and maybe in the middle of his workday, I cried a little. It’s hard to let him go.

I’m glad I’m able to get so much feeling from such attemptedly-simple interactions. It’s a hard-won skill and what gives these adventures so much meaning. But it feels a little lonely too. Are there really ladies out there being the just-sex thing he wants, the just-sex thing THEY want to be? I mean, there must be, he is superhot. I’ll always admire those casual girls, even as I try to let go of ever being them. But hey! I was casual for like eight whole days! And it was a very good eight days.

Dear Coach, Dear Goodgood Filthy Prince, Dear Kind-Of-But-Not-Really-A-Fuckboy,

Thank you. I’m so proud of how far we’ve both come. (Pun absolutely intended.) Go do all the things, go be exactly you. But part of you (not that part) (okay also a little bit that part) will always be mine now. I’m keeping your swagger, your bluntness, your sunny, sexy optimism. You’re inside me now always and I’m so, SO glad.

Spanks and vaccinated kisses,

A Princess

A Conference with Myself, Part Four: Saying Goodbye Lying Down

            After The Professor and The Kind Ma’am left the Cuddle Party, I asked a nice woman I’d met at one of the workshops earlier (She was the one to whom I’d exclaimed “I just got a goooood phone number!” About The Professor.) if she would like to snuggle in behind me. I’ll call her Soulful Lady, because who knows, she may be in future stories.

           

            She spooned up to my back and I held onto Mr. Shiny Eyes from the other side. I missed The Professor but also felt lucky to be so deeply ensconced in the lovey-dovey vibes of the room. I’d talked with Mr. Shiny Eyes about meeting up at The Recurring Character’s room party later on (Just being invited made me feel like I was home.) but I was pretty sure I’d end up happily on my own instead. Everyone was soft, warm, lovely, and I felt full. I untangled myself from the pile and said softly that it was time to go.

            As I hugged Soulful Lady goodbye, she said “Remember, you are not too much. You are exactly enough.”

            “Thank you so, so much,” I gushed. “I’ll really try to remember.”

            Saying goodbye to Mr. Shiny Eyes, I put my cheek against his like a happy kitten, overjoyed to have reunited. After we kissed goodbye, his face was flushed with playful vitality, a sunbeam of a person, a natural resource. We both glowed with belonging and peace.

            I hugged the Cuddle Facilitator and thanked her for her help—she is really, really good at her job. On the way to my room, I ran into The Professor and The Kind Ma’am and told them I was in blissed-out solo mode for the night, and they said be sure to let them know if I changed my mind.

            One important thing about the Kind Ma’am: She has ropes. That just makes me feel optimistic about life in general.

            I was getting off the elevator to my room when I heard a “psst” and looked down a floor to see The Professor holding the pink water bottle that I’d left in the Cuddle Party. I motioned for him to toss it up, but he said “Just come down.” in a way that was just Dommy enough for me to do what he said.

            I was SO GLAD that I’d left my bottle, because as soon as I walked back off the elevator onto the first floor, he wrapped me up in his arms and we made out like teenagers, which you may know is my favorite thing in the universe. The chemistry/Energy between us made me dizzy, as if I’d been struck by warm, fuzzy, pink lightning. I think we might’ve been a little more affectionate than some not-with-the-conference passersby may have been expecting, and I loved that—I’m still a showoff at heart.

            I got to my room (still somehow by myself), cranked up the heat, took off everything but my socks, got into the big fluffy white hotel bed, and felt myself in every sense of the word. I loved the Energy, light, and lust sparking through me—very similar to the sensation of having had ropes on, except that I hadn’t. My skin was hot and tingling, my nipples hard—I felt like I’d spent the day being naked and admired in the sun. I ravished myself and slept an angel’s sleep, forgetting to even set an alarm.

            I woke up later than I’d meant to, almost missing a chance at breakfast. The Professor had texted to see what I was doing, so I set out to find him and it was easy. He and The Kind Ma’am were having breakfast with a bunch of friends and there was a spare seat for me. I dreamily ate french toast and bacon, leaned my head against his strong, warm shoulder, and got to know the two of them a little better.

After breakfast, The Professor asked if we could go up to my room for a bit and yesyesyes. When he told The Kind Ma’am “We’re just gonna go say goodbye for a bit.” she smiled big and teased us-- “Yep, just going to say goodbye, alone, in a room, lying down…”

Checkout time was looming, so we set a timer for ten minutes. I’d forgotten the joy of setting a timer for snuggles at The Big Poly Conference, but then I pretty much love setting a timer about anything.

            Those few minutes alone with him, in bed, being held, were the sweetest and best. He put his hand on my heart and it felt like a direct line to the divine. He caressed my breast and it became the moment I refer back to the most during personal time.

When the timer went off, I reluctantly went to turn it off, but he had other ideas. While my phone merrily chimed away, he not-quite roughly pushed me into the wall, took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. I could feel him hard against me and I wished that we had hours. Days.

            All riled up and goddessy, I regained control and pushed him onto the bed, climbed on top, and pushed myself against him, enjoying his startled pleasure.

Eventually, we did have to heed the silly timer. Saying goodbye took a lot of time, a lot of lap-sitting, a lot of kissing with one sneaker on because it was very hard to finish getting dressed.

As he stood in the doorway almost leaving, he said: “Just know this: you are loved.” It was the perfect thing to say, and it felt both from him and not from him, like love was radiating from the whole building, from the whole universe of interconnected souls, is all. It was something I really needed to hear, a sentiment I want to take good care of.

When I returned to the default world, I found the contrast too great. I resolved to make my everyday life more loving, more gentle, more hospitable to my sparkly heart and hungry spirit. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but I like the changes I’ve made so far.

The Professor has been in touch every day since. He is just as good in the everyday as he was in the land of magic, and I appreciate him more and more with every text, call, and picture. He feels steadying to me, and I feel hopeful.

A Conference with Myself, Part Three: Hugging Heartbreak, Embracing Joy

“Even if you feel overcome with nihilistic thoughts, your body is still alive with an optimism of its own.  Join the thoughts of your body.” –Yoko Ono

            When I first started adventuring way back when, I decided to use cuddle parties as a benchmark for how far I’ve come in inhabiting my body and letting go of grief. The first one, way back in 2012, I spent crying over my struggling marriage and unexpressed bisexuality. The second one, I spent mostly on my own despite the puddle of people, enjoying all of the lovey vibes in a very surprising new self-contained way. This time, I dove all the way in, tapped into my body’s optimism as Yoko suggests, and was blessedly immersed in the easy, soft connections with and among my fellow lovey-dovey souls.

            Still, sadness did need to have its moment. As I lay curled up and relaxed in the afterglow of The Kind Ma’am’s sweet/hurty attention, the loss I’d been trying to deny for months crept in and I just ached for Mr. Makeout Music, for all of the November grief. Since one of my New Year’s resolutions is to ask for help when I need it, I asked the Cuddle Facilitator to disentangle herself from a beautiful-looking embrace so we could talk for a minute. (I’m not a monster, it’s part of her role. But I still feel bad for interrupting snuggles!)

            I told her the story, the story my friends and I are all sick of, and she had an idea: “Let’s try this. I’m going to hold you, and you’re going to just feel it all. Feel it as deeply as you can, and then we’ll see if you’re ready to go back to playing.”

            So she put her arms around me, and as she held me, her heart against mine felt like MM’s heart, from those twice-a-day hugs that I missed so much. The connection I still felt to him was keen and wrenching and real, and I loved it so much. (I still do, though thankfully it feels much less claustrophobic/painful now.)

            I almost cried, but didn’t. I thanked her mistily and went back to the party, joining a cuddle pile with a few nice strangers who’d seemed fun during consent practice.

            I was blissed out and petting the hip of a nice woman from Colorado when (Hooray!) The Professor appeared above me and asked if he could join us. I was spooned in behind the nice woman, and he spooned in behind me, a friendly wall of warmth. I asked if he would pull my hair (or he asked me, I don’t remember) and he was such the perfect balance of gentle and forceful that I whooshed down into subspace, for the first real time in years. The weightless, beatific feeling of being relieved from control, turns out I’d missed it so much. I feel like I’m using the word “blessed” too many times in this story, but it keeps being necessary.

            I asked if I could turn over to face him, and the resulting embrace was one of the most comforting places I’ve ever been. I’m trying superhard not to get carried away here, of course he’s maybe just really good at hugging, but the way he fit with me had a teensy bit of destiny to it.

            At cuddle parties, you’re supposed to look for specific permission every step of the way, and for every request he made, I gave an emphatic “Yes!” especially the “May I kiss you?’ part—the Professor is really, really good at kissing. Just like with the hair pulling, soft and urgent, emphatic and sweet. There’s nothing like being really just thoroughly kissed.

            “Will you put your leg between mine?” He asked and oh yes, I just wanted to find a cuddle party loophole and just give him permission to do every. Single. Thing.

            “May I put my hand of your chest?” He asked, and that meant heart, not boob, and yesyes, it’s time to go ahead and believe in Energy, because this guy has ALL OF IT.

While I was lying there in The Professor’s arms, Mr. Shiny Eyes crawled over and asked for a kiss and I was happy to give it. The three of us chatted until it was time for The Professor to go have a late supper with The Kind Ma’am. I kissed him goodbye and settled into a new cuddle configuration with Mr. Shiny Eyes and the interesting strangers.

Next: More cuddles, more kisses, and saying goodbye lying down.

A Conference with Myself, Part Two: Mr. Shiny Eyes! Cuddle Practice! Hair Pulling!

Before I float back into all the awesomeness, I should backtrack a little bit to say that Mr. Shiny Eyes was one of the guy pals I reached out to after my New Years resolution to remember how to have guy friends. In the thick of divorce grief a couple of years ago, I’d broken things off with him for no good reason, and I was superworried that I’d hurt him—and I had. I’m sad to say that I haven’t always been fully conscious of the fact that I can affect men’s feelings, and I was glad I asked him about it. We had a really nice call a few weeks before the conference, so it only took us a few minutes of being in the same building to get in kiss/cuddle/flirt mode that day. A day where I kiss three worthy men is a good one.

Also, I can’t overstate how much of a difference my extra introvert time made. It had been such a long time since I’d felt like I was on a magical adventure with my cute, slutty self—this was a reunion within a reunion.

Anyway, back to being excited/nervous/fluttery to meet up with The Professor at the Cuddle Party. I got into my PJs and nice warm socks and brought pillows and blankets downstairs to the party room. I was one of the first to arrive, so I made a little nest within the bigger nest of pillows and blankets and I stretched and breathed. The Cuddle Facilitator stamped my hand with a red heart that meant I could come and go as needed.

When The Professor showed up with The Kind Ma’am, I felt surprisingly shy for someone who’d spent the day raising my hand emphatically like a smutty Hermione in the workshops and smooching old and new pals. It was both like a first date and not a like first date at all. If all first dates involved wearing soft pants, (and like an hour of consent practice) the world would truly be a magical place.

Once The Professor was in his plaid flannel pajama pants, he sat down between me and The Kind Ma’am, his arms around both of us. They talked and I snuggled up against his shoulder, feeling the warmth that radiated from him all over. And who should sit down next to me on the other side but Mr. Shiny Eyes! Without much preamble, we started making out gleefully, and I got to feel the glow of being between two beautiful men, of being in a chain, no, a net of soft, snuggly vibes and comfy touch. The perfect mix of kissing and friendship, safety and adventure.

For technical stuff about Cuddle Parties this is a good post:  but basically the first loooooong time of the party was consent practice, practicing asking specifically for what we wanted and saying and getting nos and yesses. (Not doing the things yet, just the asking and answering.) We even had to say no to things that we really, really wanted and yes to things we hated—that way you can really feel what a no or a yes feels like in the body, the Cuddle Facilitator said, and I think it was true. I LOVE consent practice and often wish the world were more Cuddle Party-esque.

When the cuddles finally started in earnest, The Professor was occupied in a sort of two-person-seeming snuggle so I sat down on one of the chairs at the side of the room, breathed and waited to see what would happen next. I felt hesitant, but warm and hopeful. I was so pleased when The Kind Ma’am sat down next to me and asked “Can I put my arm around you?” Yes! I felt protected and friended, taken under her wing. I wondered aloud if she might be willing to pull my hair and guess what! She said yes!

Having been spinstering it for a couple of years, I hadn’t been too sure where I stood with my kinks, though I suspected they were still there. With her, it was as if no time had passed since my last adventures, like I always have been and always will be getting my hair pulled, forever and ever, amen. When she grabbed the hair near the nape of my neck, I let out a fairly un-Cuddle-Party-like groan/purr/wail. I tried really hard (and fairly unsuccessfully) not to disrupt the proceedings with my caterwauling, but no one seemed to mind.

I wound up sitting at her feet, feeling little and adored and silly. She arranged my hair into pigtails, played, pulled, and (after I asked very nicely) called me “Good girl.” Swoon. The Kind Ma’am was perfect and careful and sweet, but I got a little overwhelmed from the burgeoning energy of the room and the new/old/hurty/lovely sensations, so I thanked her and said I needed a little time. I curled up on my own for a bit, letting the relief and happiness and complicated homecoming emotions swirl around me and within me.

Next: Cuddling heartbreak a little, cuddling joy A LOT.

A Conference with Myself: Part One

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.