Okay, So, Really Heartbroken Over Steampunk Guy

Last night I sat on the stoop outside the laundromat watching the cars go by and trying to write this post in my notebook. I started it two or three different ways but kept getting stuck, mostly because I wanted to be saying it to him and not the internet. So I tried to consolidate all of the emotions into a flirty text:

“Not getting over you very fast. Would rather be under you! ;)”

To which he wrote back:

“The fastest over a guy is to get under another one! ;)”

He was just being cute and encouraging, but that text just opened up a floodgates and let me go ahead and be heartbroken. It struck my frustration so perfectly: I don’t want some stranger, some random other guy, I want him.

When we were first breaking it off, I had faith that I would find someone who is actually what I’m looking for—available, open, willing to offer up the occasional “Good girl.” He believed in that guy for me and I appreciate that so much.

I was so proud of how well we broke up that I never let myself have the heartbreak. I think part of me was still trying to mitigate my emotions, to try and be cute for them so they wouldn’t go away, but they’re already gone, at least for the time being, so I have to figure out again how to stop censoring the feelings.

It may be less fighty, but it’s just like any other breakup. I’m hurt and sad and I wish that I could have found some way to make him see me, make him love me, make him actually clear the time out for me every other week. I have that awful feeling of not being good enough, even though that has nothing to do with it at all. I have that childish feeling of wishing I could be like the girls he loves, wishing I had whatever quality they have that made him go ahead and love them. It’s the thing that I’m still afraid I’m missing, the magical ability to be loved by men.

And yes, I see the pattern here; I see the futility I keep setting up for myself, choosing someone who doesn’t have enough attention and then being hurt that he didn’t have enough attention. Crazy, I know, and I’ll try not to do it again. Though of course I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on this time.

I’m still hurt that what ended up being so meaningful to me—all of those deep, transformative experiences were just sex to him, just something it was easy to scroll past once it was over. And I’m so angry with myself that I have so little experience that everything is still such a goddamned big deal.

I hate my stupid heart for taking away so much fun stuff, past and present. There’s so much shiny and good about the Steampunks that I just won’t be able to enjoy for a while and I feel left out. I feel like another way towards community and connection is cut off, and that makes me feel like I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing. I wanted it to be simple and fun. I wanted to go to their parties and be excited about all the possibilities there. The last thing I want to lose is more parties.

I’ve tried for years to accept the fact that I fall for people so easily but it just seems to cost so much. I didn’t want to love him, I wanted to accept and enjoy what he had to give and keep looking for the one who’s right for loving. Why does that make so much sense on paper but not translate to real life? It irks me to no end.

I know I’m not going to get significantly less lovey-dovey any time soon. I need somebody that I can just go ahead and be bonkers about. It’s just torturing myself to try and fight the current of it. But if I can only have sex with people I can fall for, that feels so constricting. It feels like there’s going to be too much waiting around—maybe waiting around forever. There’s so much about bodies that I’ve just discovered, I don’t want to back away from them now.

Part of the reason I’m having trouble getting over him is that I can’t quite see the way forward—I can’t imagine finding the right guy and being adored when I don’t even know where I’ll work or live. I want to go back to the beginning of the summer when I had a job I loved, three snuggle pals, and a wife with whom things might work out. Or I want to go back to the immediate relief of the divorce decision, that floating, sunshiny powerful feeling that came just before I realized how much work and grief were ahead of me.

I still just really don’t understand why I had to give him up. So much of him (Ha. So very much of him.) was making me happy. I miss the spark of joy whenever I got a text from him, I miss the emphatic kisses, I miss just saying hi and taking off our clothes. It was only a few times. It shouldn’t be such a big deal. But it is.

I so badly miss the person I was at the beginning of the summer, or sometimes was, anyway. I feel a million miles away from the sparkly confidence it took to date him, from the simple faith of just going ahead and giving him my number.

I’m still sad and hurt that he wouldn’t go to the beach with me and didn’t play with me in public. On bad days I still wonder whether he was embarrassed by my age or body, but even if he was, it would just mean that he wasn’t the right person. It wouldn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with me.

One thing I know for sure is that these feelings won’t be solved by plowing ahead to the next partners. As not-romantic as it was supposed to be, the thing with Steampunk Guy was special and specific and I don’t want to move on from it by doing something that means less. With some possible special-occasion exceptions, I want to be really dating the next guy who puts his stuff in me, and I want to like him at least as much as I like Steampunk Guy. It’s such a vexing thing to decide, but I don’t think I can do the less-romantic kinds of sex until I have some basic needs met.

I have to give him credit for raising my standards in a lot of ways. He set the bar pretty high for how attracted I want to be to somebody, for how important chemistry is. In the past I’ve sometimes been able to talk myself into someone because he has nice qualities, but I’m a very sexed-up girl and I want someone I’m superhot for, and who’s just as hot for me. And I feel comfortable saying now that a nice, big, friendly dick is a star priority too. That particular part of him is especially difficult for all of my parts to let go of. Oh, it was a good one. If I were still a poet I would write it poems.

Being mad at myself for loving him doesn’t seem like a helpful emotion. It would be better to just accept it and let myself feel it until it changes into whatever friendly thing is next. Hating my heart is not going to get me where I need to go, that’s for sure. Better just to say thanks and let it do whatever it needs to do, impatient as that might make me.

So thanks, pal. I know you like changing lives and you did. You showed me what I should expect in a man and that it’s safe to trust someone enough to let down my guard. You pulled down a whole set of limits that I was using to keep the world at arm’s length. You showed me what I really want sex to be. And what’s wrong with falling for a really excellent penis? Nothing.

During that text exchange, it felt much better when I stopped trying to be cute about it and just went ahead and told him how I feel, making it clear that I didn’t expect him to do anything about it but still wanting him to know. So many guys would’ve just not written back, but he of course was magnanimous and kind. Knowing he’s rooting for me to find what I’m looking for helps so much even though it hurts too. Even if I love another guy I can’t have, at least this time it’s somebody who was worth it.

Real Date/Car Sex With Steampunk Guy, Part Two: A Hand Over My Mouth

We didn’t go make out in a park. After a little more dawdling around, he pulled the car (a little SUV, I guess) onto a quiet side street. He left on the air and the radio. (Top 40. Making out to One Direction is probably the dirtiest thing I’ve ever done.) I told him that I love being spanked in cars. I snuggled up to him and he pulled up my skirt and obliged. He still felt abstracted and I wasn’t sure he wanted me, so I goaded him into hitting harder and harder.

We kissed and he pulled me to him by the hair. My legs were already splayed open and his hand went between them, stroking the already-damp crotch of my panties and then going inside, pushing his fingers up into me.

He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled open his pants, pulled a condom on and grabbed the back of my head, pushing me down towards his cock. I was happy to have him in my mouth, even as he thrust all the way into my throat and I gagged and fought for breath. He pushed my head down so hard that it hurt, hands in my hair, kneeling down in front of him behind the driver’s seat. This is the good kind of humiliating, filthy in just the right way. Writing this makes me want his dick in my mouth even more, in a fantasy world where I could taste it.

Hands still tangled into the back of my hair, he pulled me up to kiss me. I straddled him and put my arms around him, wanting to be as close as physics would allow. He moved aside my panties to put himself inside me. This is a move I’ve fantasized about for as long as I can remember, and it did not disappoint. He has a way of pulling my fantasies out into the real world, and I hope he’d proud of that.

I pushed into him and felt a rush of both relief and hunger. I wanted all of him. I wanted to eat him alive. I held on as tightly as I could as we thrust into each other, and, forgetting that we were parked on a quiet suburban street in front of people’s well-manicured lawns, I let out wails of pleasure.

The bad thing happened so fast—his hand over my mouth, a limit broken. And I was PISSED.

“Fuck you.” I huffed, pulling the hand away and hoisting myself off him and onto the other seat in one swift flutter of movement.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I forgot.” I could tell that it was a genuine mistake, not something he’d done to hurt me. “It’s just, you can’t be that loud…”

I sat and cried, aware of how squishy my bare ass was on the seat, having teacherly thoughts about Clorox wipes. Sobs of panic came out and I felt defeated, like every guy-story has to end this way.

He was being apologetic and asking me if I was okay, but he has also still stroking his cock. I wanted to be the one stroking it, I wanted to be all over it, but I felt like all I could do was go home. “Thrift Shop” came on the radio and made me laugh at the not-awesomeness of the situation.

I asked him to hook my bra for me and when he did, something shifted. Something about the heat and softness of his hand on my back made the story change for me. I pulled him toward me and disappeared into kissing him, ran my hand down his belly to what I really wanted. I could decide where the story went next, and it was going to heat and decadence and not tears. I didn’t have to be afraid of a hand over my mouth any more. In fact (not to reward bad behavior, but I have to tell the truth) I’m kind of attracted to it.

Next: Long live the summer of my ass.

Steampunk Guy and Two Kinds of Sex-Tears

So my second date with Steampunk Guy was very much like the first, except in the daytime, for the decadent housewifeness of it all. I got all dressed up and made sure that my little black-and-white striped dress was short enough so that he could see my lacy, hot-pink underpants when I walked up the steps in front of them. Putting on the outfit is a bigbig part of the fun, even if it stays on for like two minutes.

I just love kissing him, being in his arms, the way his whole body curls up urgently against mine, the instant gratification of him.

I did make a playlist, not necessarily just for him, but it’s called “Something Like Makeout Music,” made mostly by dropping in whole albums that wouldn’t disrupt the process too much. He says LCD Soundsystem makes him feel like he’s in a Nineties movie about the Eighties.

This time he brought ropes, and it was so good to have them on again. He was competent and careful, honoring my no-intentional-boob-hurting limit (I’m happy to report that he makes a really good effort to respond to feedback, even feedback he can’t do anything about, as you’ll see toward the end of the story.) and just generally having perfect hands about it. I liked to stop and wrap my arms around him and kiss him while he wound and wove the ropes. The smell of him was a little bitter, as if he hadn’t showered that morning or had been doing sweaty work—you know I get drunk on that smell.

On the couch, he was hard on my hair and my ass-cheeks, but was gentle about being the first person to put a finger in my asshole. I couldn’t quite lose self-consciousness about it, but I was glad to have him in there. He had me cradled in one arm and the other gloved hand probing slowly—I felt so calm and cared-for, ready to just settle in and behave myself.

Until he smacked me in the hoo-ha and I had to laugh and smack him back for being so porny.

“What’s porny about that?”

“Seriously, it’s what they do right before spitting on their hands…”

I really, really like giving him a hard time. I like how impossible and incorrigible and silly he is. The sex is pretty perfect, but the banter’s what’s getting me attached.

The perfect sex moments…him grabbing the back of the ropes while I was kneeling in front of him so he could go into me harder. When I asked for a little break and he gave it by fucking me slowly and sweetly, my brain spritzed itself with all kinds of bonding chemicals. I warmed to him, melted to him. I let him in and it felt so perfect. And I told him it felt perfect even though I knew it would only make him more incorrigible.

That melty moment was a reprieve from the feeling I’ve always had, the certainty I’ve always had that men are hopelessly separate from me, unattainable and ungraspable. He was there, we were us, there was wholeness. Straight women must get used to this feeling, but after all those penis-free years, I’m still waking up to it, feeling fragile and young and fighty about needing men the way I do.

He turned me over so that I was on my belly and covered me completely. His soft, fuzzy legs held my legs down, his arms over my arms. He held my head so I couldn’t move and I felt a rush of relief. Absolute joy. Helpless and safe, what I’d been waiting for all along.

“This. Is. My. Favorite.” I sighed, my head smushed into the couch cushion.

“Why’s it your favorite?”

“Because you’re all over me.”

He turned into a growling animal and fucked me harder. The Smiths were singing “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” and though I knew this wasn’t that, the music and the pressure and relief pushed the experience to something transcendent and I did what he wanted me to do, which was cry. Real, deep tears this time and he came. It was lovely in a way I can’t get my head around.

So what can I do about having such deep pressing needs met in such a casual situation? What I did was enjoy him for a couple more hours, put an apron on over my ropes and make him a sandwich, argue about whether I was a hipster or not based on the fact that I think Arcade Fire is makeout music. (My argument is that I like things too sincerely to be a hipster, he says I sincerely like hipsterish things. Says Steampunk Guy.)

We finished the conversation we’d started about the Scary Party in a way that made me feel satisfied and safe. He said I really should write down this line about how The Man probably got hit on more than I did during that mess of a thread, probably girls writing to The Man and saying  “I’d shut the fuck up for you.” I’m happy to know that Steampunk Guy doesn’t seem interested in me shutting the fuck up. Although, best of luck to him if he did!

Anyway, my point is that we had lots of fun. He kept asking how he could help keep me from feeling sad when he leaves and I honestly had no idea. He just isn’t a wrap-you-in-a-blanket-and-say-sweet-nothings kind of guy, and really I’ve learned how much nothing sweet nothings can mean. And really felt fine until he started to get dressed.

All those intense experiences make it easy to forget this was just a second date. I’ve never had this reaction to any other date—in fact, I hung up the phone with Mr. Sweetheart the night before feeling close to him even though he is six hours away. Being clingy at the end of a date just isn’t me—I’m usually just ready to go back to my book or whatever.

The sad feeling really doesn’t have much to do with actual him, so I don’t know what’s triggering it, unless it’s purely just my inability to be casual. I do feel overwhelmed by the number of commitments he has, but that’s who he is, it’s who I like.

“I had a really good time and I’d like to do it again, but this is all it is.”

And I LIKE what it is. I just don’t know if I’m built for it.

Tears or no tears I went on my Fet page and listed him as someone I’m “considering.” Even that vagueness feels vulnerable, but while I was laying there thinking things through after he left, I watched this TED Talk about how vulnerability is the key to connectedness. Who knows. He says we’re fortnightly, so I’ve got at least that long to figure it out.Or figure out that there's nothing to figure out.

Worries, Wishes, and Resolutions, Post-Heartbreak

Sweetie says it’s not always the same story, but the last year is really looking like a pattern to me—girl meets dom, dom breaks limits, girl panics and feels unplaywithable. It takes so much to rebuild myself after each breach of trust, and it’s very hard to live with the fact that these kinds of things are happening all the time, that he’s out there ready to dehumanize the next girl.

I don’t want to be using words like “dehumanizing.” I want to have fun. I want to be the brave naked girl with a well-spanked behind and ropes in various shades of Hello Kitty, but that girl seems really far away. So I’ll start with the worries:

--I am worried that there isn’t a dominant guy in the world who doesn’t secretly want me to just shut the fuck up. No matter how clear I’ve made it that messing with my voice is a hard limit, I always seem to end up with a hand across my throat, literally or metaphorically.

--I’m worried that I’ll never be able to tell the difference between red flags and just fears. Since I’m a fairly anxious person anyway, I tend to dismiss intuitions and deal-breakers until it’s too late. In the case of the last guy, so much of my psyche was like a horror movie audience hollering DON’T GO IN THERE but somehow I always end up in there. It would save me a lot of trouble if, as Sweetie suggests, my intuition could please speak in complete sentences.

--I’m worried that I’m just someone who can’t gain respect for some reason. I worry about this a lot in my classroom, as well, on the days when the first graders won’t simmer down long enough for me to finish a sentence.

--I worry that submission is just something that I try to exchange for love, but I don’t think so. After a good, connected scene, I feel clearheaded and centered, closer to my better self. It’s only when I play without connection that things go off the rails.

Now for the wishes:

--I wish for a man who’ll be happy to belong to me, no matter who else he belongs to, no matter who else is at the table. I would love to sit there and know that he loves me, even as he gazes lovingly at his wife. I want to feel cared for and secure enough to enjoy the love between him and his other partner(s). I don’t mean belonging to each other in a M/s sense, only in the Breakfast at Tiffany’s buy-some-furniture-and-give-the-cat-a-name sense. This is the hardest thing to believe in.

--I’m trying to figure out a non-hurtful way to say I wish for a guy with a regular-sized penis that works most of the time. But it’s not really about the size or hardness; it’s more about having the depth of character to handle mishaps and insecurity with aplomb. In my somewhat limited experience, there seems to be a connection between frustrations in that department and misogynist tendencies.

--Speaking of depth of character, I wish for a man who is as good and careful with knots as my wife is. Learning ropes takes discipline, practice, and patience, all things that I need to be looking for in a partner.

--I wish to be able to make mistakes, talk things through, ask for compromise. It keeps getting to a point where I’m afraid to ask questions, and by then it is certainly too late.

--I am not a unicorn, and I do not want to date or bottom to his wife, girlfriend, friend, other sub, or anybody else, unless I expressly say so. I wish for a man who can have healthy boundaries between relationships and who can even (Do I dare wish for this in modern times?) PUT THE FUCKING PHONE AWAY on date nights. (Except for check-ins and emergencies, of course.) It’s not that I don’t want to know his people; I just would like a chance to know him first.

--I wish for a man who can see me broken and sobbing, who can see me at my ugliest and still think I’m beautiful. I know this is a possible thing because my wife has been doing it since 2001.

And the resolutions:

--I will not ignore red flags. If something in me says “RUN!” I will run as if Matt Smith himself were telling me to.

--I will not do things I don’t like. Even if other people seem to like them. This seems obvious but I need to tell it to myself.

--I will not date men whose other partners have “Veto power.” I will gladly meet folks but I won’t be vetted. I want to be treated like a potential friend, not a potential employee.

--I will not date anyone who makes me feel secondary or tertiary. I have room in my heart for a real second partner, and I want a man who does as well. This doesn’t mean I would need equal time, but if I see him once a week, I want the time to mean something.

--I have friends with whom I will happily play casually, but when I am on a date and someone asks me what I am looking for, I will not give some wishy-washy answer about “Oh, well, I’m open to however things turn out…” I will say “I’m looking for someone at whose house I could eventually leave a toothbrush.” and if he seems toothbrush-averse, I’ll move on.

Yay Updates! Mr. Popular, Mr. Hazel Eyes, and Sweetie With a Blindfold

It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to post. Sweetie and I moved into a new apartment last week, and while it is shaping up to be quite a little love nest, moving has been sucking the life out of my writing life.

So! Three main updates:

1. My first date with Mr. Popular! I named him that because we first started corresponding last summer when his dance card was all filled, and at the moment he lives with his two kids, wife, his ex-wife, and his ex-wife’s new partner, as well as having another girlfriend who doesn’t live with them. I’m thinking that if we work out, he’d make a nice once-a-month treat, and I’m excited about meeting the rest of the constellation some day too.

Mr. Popular is a tall, beardy, adorable engineer. He asked me out for Indian food, which means yay, he read my profile! We sat there talking for like three hours, about his family, my adventures, his love of Rock Band, and poly in general. He was all full of energy and it was easy to get excited about him. (In fact, when I excused myself to go to the restroom, I was so excited that it was hard to pee, so I think that’s a good sign.)

He likes to seduce girls by inviting them over to play Beatles Rock Band—he says it’s easy to get cozy after singing all those romantic songs together. So that’s exactly the plan for our second date, which isn’t for a few weeks. He gave me the choice of family-style Rock Band or a more datey plan, and I chose the just-the-two-of-us version because I want to get to know him a little better before I meet everyone else.

What really turns me on about Mr. Popular is that he has to be proactive about scheduling—it oddly seems easier to make plans with him than with less-busy pals. I feel like all of the stuff he’s got going on makes him more respectful of the stuff I’ve got going on—and that is HOT.

2. On the other hand, my second date with Mr. Hazel Eyes was romantically serendipitous. I was just getting out of a placement test on Friday when he texted to tell me that he needed a hug. I happened to be in the neighborhood where he works, so I was happy to deliver one. It was pouring down rain so I had to go on a quest for an umbrella—the only one I could find was a mini Hello Kitty one, darn.

I was dressed for a placement test, not a date, and my back was soaked from the rain, but he didn’t seem to mind. We met at the local indoor farmer’s market and had burgers in the little diner there. Over lunch we talked about some of the things I’ve been worrying about, my post-Bill anxieties, which he was able to mostly put to rest. I kept stroking his arm and he kept looking me like grrr. I told him his Kitten Calendar nickname but didn’t tell him where he can find it.

After lunch the rain had stopped, so we took a little walk before he had to go back to work. He whispered progressively filthier things in my ears and stopped periodically to press me up against buildings. I’m starting to get used to the fact that I can turn guys on, but he really was making such a big deal about it. I liked him hard and pressed up against me, mauling each other like teenagers in the middle of the bright day seemed extra lewd. He grabbed my ass at the bus stop and I think I’d have to call it the good kind of humiliating.

He has really good top energy and I think I might be able to teach him how to be my dom, but I’m still just not sure about him. We’ve got a dinner date for Wednesday night so we’ll see.

3. This weekend Sweetie and I went to our favorite rope-themed play party again. I’ve been really hankering for a spanking so I was really excited to be there. Two really significant things happened!

First—somebody else spanked me while Sweetie was nearby and she didn’t mind! Huzzah! There was this sort of Renn-Fair-ish  guy whose flogging techniques I’ve admired for a while and he looked like he wanted to try out a new toy—a cane tipped with a ceramic star—and without stopping to think, I blurted out an offer. I asked Sweetie if it was okay and she said yes!

We were sitting on cushy benches in sort of a square with a whole bunch of people. It was lingerie night, so had on a pretty, sheer nightgown with hardly any coverage on the boob area (but tape on the nipples, sadly) and a frilly ruffle at the bottom, with matching periwinkle blue lace undies. I climbed up on my knees on the bench, hoisted up my nightie, and stuck out my ass. The star thing hurt like a son of a bitch but the guy had such a funny spankside manner that I was laughing my head off. I asked Sweetie how it felt to see that and she said she just really liked to hear my laugh. High-five to us.

Then it was time for me and Sweetie to play. I decided I wanted my arms tied to posts and lots of ropes on my upper body and thighs. Off came the nightie and I stood there almost naked in front of everyone. It felt much more exposed than being all the way naked at the beach. I had my contacts in so I kept catching people’s eye while they watched us, which felt hot but unnerving. There’d been a munch right before the party, so I think people just felt too chatty to play.

“Too many looky-loos!” I kept saying. Finally I asked Sweetie to put a blindfold on me and it felt GREAT. I lost self-consciousness and slipped right into subspace after that. I’d been scared of blindfolds after Fireguy, and I’m delighted to have them back on the yes pile. So much to celebrate!

Cuddle Party Part Three: A Very Chaste Threesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please, Sir, Part Six: Censorship and OMG I Heart His Penis

***Note: Sometimes the most liberating characters can also be the most repressive. I have one hard limit, at least one that would be relevant on the first date: Don’t try to take my voice away. This applies physically, to things like gags and breath play, but also to other ways of limiting expression. Ever since our date, Fireguy has been harassing me about this blog. The day after, while I was fragile and trying to piece things together, he told me I couldn’t post about it until the following week. That was a trigger that sent me into a panic. After almost a week of feeling anxious and threatened (but still posting) I explained to him again about the limit, and he apologized. Yesterday he called, expressing all kinds of worry about my writing and cruelly triggering me again. He was specifically worried about Varga Girl reading it. Fuck those two. Seriously. I don’t know how I got in the middle of their mess, but I wish I had run away screaming when I first had the chance.

What had been a freeing, complex, and loving experience has turned into a nightmare. I feel angry and betrayed, but I refuse to be ashamed. I refuse to compromise my point of view so that his and hers can be more validated. Fuck that. And fuck him.***

Back to the fun! So there!

I wish I could spell the moans out well enough so you could hear them. I watched inside myself closely, waiting for when it was time to ask Sir if I could come. They’re hard to predict, I learned. I’d feel pulse start inside me and start to ascend, but it was hard to tell when the peak would come. I felt self-conscious and tried really hard to predict them. I tried to do a good job and ask permission, but my orgasms on the inside are just an ebb and flow, a tide. For a pronounced peak, you’ve got to get me on the outside. Which he would do, soon enough. It’s tempting to draw a parallel between getting permission to come and him trying to control my writing.

“It seems like there should be more hair pulling…please? Sir?”

He obliged and what happened next was my favorite part. Did I already call something my favorite part? Oh well. Lots of favorite parts.

He gathered me to him and just sort of went to town on me, pulling my hair just insistently enough, biting my neck and shoulders, growling-I felt deliciously ravished, still all tied up, maybe blindfolded, I don’t remember. I love feeling like things are all wildly out of control but safe, attacked and protected at once. I felt as adored as a favorite toy, a favorite friend, a favorite girl. Of course my egalitarian poly self wants to qualify that, but it’s how I felt while I was being so nicely mauled.

We settled back into being gentle and my not-favorite part happened—he kept narrating the things he wouldn’t/couldn’t do, and it made me acutely aware of the Relationship Agreement and my own STI status. He said things like “I want to put my face between your legs so much, I’m saying that even though I can’t, I don’t want you to feel like I’m teasing you.”

It wasn’t so much the safety measures as the fact that he kept MENTIONING them—every time he did, it took me out of them moment and back to the email that made me cry, the one denying me “Special” Level 2 status.

But also! I trusted him to TIE ME UP IN HIS BASEMENT! I trusted him to SET ME ON FIRE! And he couldn’t believe that I didn’t have anything that could be transmitted that way? That seems a little unbalanced.

And! Oral sex seems pretty far to go on a first date anyway—if nothing else, I think I’m going back to a one base per date policy. And restraint with a romantic partner? That’s like EIGHTH base.

At some point I did something bratty and had to be turned on my side and spanked again. I felt so cute, still all roped up, giggling, adored.

Then it was time to take off the ropes—he needed my hands, he said. I felt a little sore from my arms being smushed behind my back for so long-there was a pinch in my shoulder.

He said, “Oh, I won’t make you lay like that next time.”

“Nono! I liked it! It’s okay!”

Then I met one of my favorite penises of all time. He told me to take it out and I was so happy to do so—pulled down his underwear and was delighted to take it in my hand. It’s hard to say what I liked about it so much—it just fit. It was friendly, likable, charming. He apologized that it was a little shy at first, but I loved making friends with it, teasing it to life.

Next: Okay, So I’m a Rebound Redhead