The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness, Part Five: I May Have Been Born for This

“I’m starting to wonder if I should rethink my workshop plans,” said Mr. Shiny Eyes. “Should I?”

“Um, yes.”

I called Sweetie and asked her to pick me up a little later than we’d planned. She’d gotten us a hotel room nearby and I was excited to end the day snuggling her, but for now I really wanted to see what would happen. (As I write this, it happens to be a week where I haven’t seen her enough and I miss her, so this paragraph gives me a little wistful feeling…)

We decided to go back to Mr. Sweetheart’s tent. There was some talk of him putting ropes on me (Yay!) but Mr. Shiny Eyes negotiated for my arms to be free. “There are some things I want to do where she’ll need to have her arms free.”

At the point, it occurred to me that things were probably going all the way to PIV sex, (Sex festival! I know! Keep forgetting!) which is an everyday thing to most people and which I sorely needed. It’s still such a big deal to me because I haven’t had that much experience with it in the past decade, so I had to stop and check in with myself to see if it would be okay. And hooray! It was!

So there I was, walking up a grassy hill on the most gorgeous sunny day, past all kinds of smiling pagan folk in various states of undress, with a cute guy on either side of me. Not sure why such a moment would bring out more imperiousness, but I said:

“Wait, why am I walking with two dudes and still carrying this heavy backpack?”

True to his pseudonym, Mr. Sweetheart took the bag.

Then I said “Now what would happen if I tried to run away?” and took off up the hill. What happened was, they chased me and spanked me as I ran, and we all laughed, and then they had to tell me I was running in the wrong direction and steer me towards the cabin and tents.

Mr. Shiny Eyes went off to wash his stuff, since he’d already had sex once that afternoon. So thoughtful.

Mr. Sweetheart and I went into someone’s communal cabin to use the restroom. Too-turned-on-to-pee is a good feeling, but is also annoying when there’s a whole bunch of stuff I’m in a hurry to start doing/having done to me. After I washed my hands I saw that there were no paper towels so I wiped them on the back of his shirt—that got me in some very nice trouble and I got pushed up against the sink. Jeez I wish I could feel his (your) hands in my hair right now.

Mr. Shiny eyes returned all fresh and clean and we all made out for a while on the railing of the cabin porch. I felt like a prize when people saw us. Then it was time to go in the tent.

The tent that Ms. and Mr. Sweetheart were sharing with some others was a store that sold..dresses, maybe? and had a big sleeping quarters in the back. There were three big air mattresses all nicely made up and lots of clothes and gear all around. They led me to the mattress on the far right of the tent and I lay down first—it was exactly the kind of happy that I get sunbathing at the nude beach, only sexier.

Is it possible to undress soulfully? I watched Mr. Sweetheart strip off his shirt, his kilt, his undies. He looked so vulnerable and sincere.

I know I talked about whatever-the-straight-version-of-bears-is as being my type, but these two aren’t that, and they’ve kind of given me a taste for fit-and-strong.

They lay down beside me, Mr. Sweetheart on the left and Mr. Shiny Eyes on the right. We held each other, kissed, and then they did something I’ve fantasized about my whole life—each of them took a nipple in his mouth, sucked and played. Complete, deep warmth flooded through me, and I felt cared-for and at peace in a way that I’ve never felt before. My moans of pleasure were insufficient to express the bliss I was feeling, so I guess that’s why God made blog posts.

Song of the Week: Stop!

Okay, I'm not sure what making a fool out of love entails, but I sure loved dancing to this at new wave night last night and it makes me feel like last week's soul retrieval was kind of real.

The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness, Part Four: The Hair-Pulling Contest

Friends, in my everyday life, when I’m not running off to sexy festivals and writing about it, I’m a teacher in my very first year. As any teacher will tell you, the first year is kind of a nightmare. Yes, there are many happy and fulfilling moments, but also bucketloads of trial and error that comes down mostly on the “error” side, mistakes that make my soul hurt, and mountains of self-doubt and shame.

I’m telling you this so you’ll understand what the sheer rightness of this story is doing for me. I may be stumbling and sniffling determinedly through my professional life, but the way I got myself exactly what I needed that day in the woods gives me hope that I will someday float myself through it into confidence and grace. Plus, it gives me something nice to daydream about when I should be grading papers.

So back to the kissing. I’m not sure how Mr. Sweetheart and I got from that sweet cake flower kiss to him yanking the bejeezus out of my hair, but I’m thinking I probably instigated it. Sincere and soulful as he is, Mr. Sweetheart has a delicious mean streak when it comes to happy pain. As we kept on kissing, he reached his hand up into the back of my hair and pulled insistently, making me feel helpless/giddy/elated. The adrenaline pushed up through me, I groaned and laughed.

Snarling a little, he dragged me across the pavilion and the “She” half of Sheandhim got adorably concerned: “Why are you dragging my friend around?”

By way of answering, he angled my face so that she could see my expression. “And...she loves it. Okay.”

So on top of the fact that I was lucky enough to have this happen to me, I also won the friend lottery by having her check on me.

And ohboy, I DID love it.

It should be said that as I write this I’m not sure of the order of things—the timeline slips away a little as happens in regards to magical days. But I do know that while we were milling around sampling obscure liquors, I had maybe the best idea I’ve ever had. I told my two kissing-pals that they should have a hair-pulling contest, and they obliged. Ms. Sweetheart held my glasses for me and Mr. Sweetheart went first--was very unsweetheartlike. He pulled my hair down so hard that I was forced to my knees. I loved making a spectacle of us, doing something so nicely violent in such safe, lovey-dovey surroundings. I think I have him an eight.

When Mr. Shiny Eyes had his turn, it was more like dancing. Holding the hair at the nape of my neck, he steered my body this way and that, eventually into a precipitous dip. It was a very princessy feeling.

“Well, (Mr. Shiny Eyes) has finesse, but (Mr. Sweetheart) is not afraid to really hurt me. They went back and forth, getting stronger and snarlier. I forget which one of them I called “Sir” first, but they sure both deserved the title. They realized after a while that I wasn’t giving them tens because then the game would be over, but eventually it was and things got much more makey-outy. Mr. Shiny Eyes helped me try a delicious elderberry something by drinking it first and kissing it into my mouth. It was dreamy and soft and tasted like all the spring goodness. He kept kissing me and kissing me until I asked for some spanks.

He told me to lean against a post on the side of the pavilion, so I did. It had some nails in it so I had to be careful. The spanking soon went back to kissing, and as he held me there against the railing, his hands started to wander, as did mine. He played with my nipples, which felt like they’d been waiting for him all along. Likewise my hand had been waiting for his fantastically hard cock.

I noticed Mr. Sweetheart hovering off to the side, so I said “What are you doing over there?” He came close so that I could put my arm around him and I said “Can I?’ and when I got the okay (More like the “Can you what?” but still…) I ran my hands over the front of his kilt while still playing with Mr. Shiny Eyes and kissing the heck out of both of them.

And one-in-each-hand is of course so very very much better in real life than it is in search terms, dears. I felt like a millionaire. Like a goddess. Like a millionaire goddess with the wettest hoo-ha in the entire known universe.

Next: It’s possible I was born for this.

The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness Part Three: Two Kisses, One Cake Flower

After the nature walk, I was feeling oddly standoffish—I was sitting on the side of the hill overlooking the afternoon ritual. Some folk nearby promised some “Ritual Science Theater 3000” and that’s kinda where I was at: ironic, detached. I’d had a lot of fun but I wasn’t sure what else I could get out of the day. Plus, I was sad that all of the guys had sarongs on. I was not seeing anywhere near a nude beach number of penises, and that made me grumpy.

But! After the ritual, which took place in sort of a picnic-pavilion thing, they had a feast where you weren’t allowed to feed anything to yourself—foodstuffs could only be put in your mouth by others. This seemed like enough of an icebreaker to get me over my wallflowerness. And then! I saw Mr. and Ms. Sweetheart! (Not married, but I’ve paired their nicknames for the sake of simplicity and also because they happen to both be sweethearts. Also it should be mentioned that she looks like a beautiful kickass goddess. Freya maybe.) I hadn’t even known they’d be there!

Mr. Sweetheart and I had been in touch a little bit since the hotel party. He even tried to matchmake me with the cute ex-fireman guy, but that didn’t go anywhere. Recently, Mr. Sweetheart had started following my blog, so he was really really on my good side. Any guy who can read those heartbreak-laden posts I’ve been writing lately and still want to hang out with me—that is a man.

Aside from the collared human platters who ringed the pavilion covered in fruit, I was the only one at the feast completely naked. I worried that it might be bad etiquette, but no one seemed to mind. Mr. and Ms. Sweetheart wrapped me up in a big hug and said they’d keep me from being a wallflower, and I was so grateful for that. With them there, I felt a nice homey healing feeling, like I could really open up and join the party.

My friends Sheandhim arrived, looking flushed and sleepy from whatever Tantric magic they’d been getting up to. We all took turns feeding each other apples slices, strawberries, and other yummy things.

And hooray! Mr. Shiny Eyes was there, chatting with a pretty lady on the ersatz dance floor. I interrupted their conversation to ask if he remembered me and tell him I DEFINITELY remembered his rope-pulling skills. It didn’t take us long to get to a kiss and ohboy was he good at it. Some kisses are just like a key finding the right lock, and this was one of those. “Hmmm, maybe we should spend some time together,” I think he said, and I was inclined to agree.

He went back to his pretty lady and I went back to my friends. After I ended up with an entire mocha mini-cupcake in my mouth at once, one of the dolled-up hostesses kindly explained that I could touch the food after it’d been fed to me, so as to take smaller bites. Predictable but enjoyable things were said about my mouth’s capacity.

Sheandhim looked into licking honey off of one of the human platters, but I’ve never gotten that licking-sticky-stuff-off-of-people thing.  However, I spotted a fancy white cake on one of the (nonhuman) side tables. I thought it was a birthday cake but it occurs to me that it might have been some magic couple’s (or triad’s or whatever’s) wedding cake. It had one flower left on it, a big white blossom that I absolutely had to have, but he fed me the cake part first. (I know, life is hard sometimes, isn’t it?) “Ahem,” I said, “That cake flower isn’t going to feed itself to me…”

I was sheepish for being such a brat, but he seemed impressed. “Not only have you been working on you no, you’re getting really good at making your desires clear.”

He fed me the flower and it was delicious—crunchy, vanilla, crystalline. And then he held me and we kissed. It was sweet and not just because of the cake flower. It was an old-friends kiss, even though we haven’t known each other for long. The kiss of an ally.

He held me tight and pressed himself forward, the front of his kilt all happy to see me—I lovelovelove that feeling.

(Sidenote: The whole kilt-as-pagan-boy-uniform thing? AWESOME. I mean, if they HAVE to wear something on the bottom.)

I feel a little nervous about the romance I’m maybe writing into these kisses, but I really like being in a world where kissing is this easy, where people are just so generous with themselves.

Next time: The hair-pulling contest: Best. Idea. Ever.

The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness, Part Two: A Shaman and a Kiss

So, learning to listen to myself is not just about knowing when to say the right “nos.” It’s about recognizing my ability to sometimes know exactly what floaty, sunny sticky fantasticness to put on the calendar. Go me. High-fiving myself.

When Sweetie dropped me off at the festival, I was a little late for the 10 am soul retrieval ceremony. I got there as the shaman lady was starting to call all the spirits to join us—the four directions, the animal spirits, the fairies, etc. She was dresses in white and sang a little like Nico.

I joined the group silently and sat in the sun getting oriented. There were five other people there, mostly ladies. The sky was ridiculously bright blue and there were all kinds of birds goofing around in the new-leafed trees.

I’m agnostic about all things spiritual (or I pretend to be…) but rituals just tend to work for me. Every week at church (Unitarian) I line up to put a stone in water, commemorating the week’s most important joy or sorrow. I write affirmations and gratitude lists. Once, I went on a shamanic journey and met my spirit animal, a black panther named Sheila. (She instructed me to “just love,” in case you’re wondering.) As much as I try to sometimes distance myself from the magic parts of faith, I also kind of believe in it.

As I watched the shaman lady shake her rattle over each person, banishing bad spirits and calling for their souls to return, the prettiest thing was watching the tears at the corner of the woman’s closed eyes sparkle in the sun. Between retrievals, she chatted with the crowd, saying a lot I couldn’t follow about wolves and fairies—pagan in-jokes, I guess. It made me want to be really careful not to get an ironic expression on my face. I also tried to find ways to spray sunscreen without disrupting the proceedings.

When it was my turn, I lay down on the sleeping bag and declined the shaman’s offer to shield my face from the bright sun with a blanket. She whispered “Are you struggling with depression?” Close enough, so yes. “I just want you to know, Freya is coming.” (Sweetie and I had a lot of fun Googling pictures of Freya the next day. Goddess of love, fertility, and war who rides a chariot driven by two cats, btw.) 

As she shook the rattle over me, I felt my lower back open up the way it sometimes does during yoga.

The lady seemed like she was, in fact, taking something out of me. At one point, she roared and shook, growling and fighting. I felt bad for having something that yucky inside of me. She sang to my maybe-wandering soul: “Return, return to yourself, return. Return, be at home, be at peace.”

When she was done singing, she whispered in my ear: “I don’t know who disappointed you, but it will be better now.” I almost laughed—even a shaman could see my Greenberg-ness.

Once I was finished with my part of the ritual, I felt like it was okay to strip down. Nobody was nude-beach naked, but one other lady was topless and that was enough to make me feel like it wouldn’t mess up ritual etiquette. After the ritual finished, I made some friends by spraying them with my SPF 70 and asking them to do the same to me. Everyone seemed nice.

The shaman lady told me that all of the growling had been because of a bear spirit who is apparently guarding over me. Which is funny because I’ve often remarked to Sweetie that we need a Helpful Polar Bear to live with us and top us so we could take a break from taking care of ourselves. This was a grizzly bear spirit, but still.

Chatting to some of the circle afterwards about the bear spirit and my penchant for bearlike dudes, one lady suggested that I meet her friend. Either she or fate sent him over to chat with me at lunch. I was shivering in the camp dining hall topless, as pants were required in there. For some reason, this nice huggable guy sat down and I just started yammering away—I love/hate when this happens, when I meet someone comfy and all of a sudden I’m telling them every little thing.

Everybody, I was totally not thinking about the fact that this was a sex festival too, that if you’re talking to someone nice, you might suddenly be kissing him. That’s exactly what happened when he found me after lunch, nude and sunning myself on my monkey blanket, waiting for it to be time to go on the nature walk. We talked some more first, me continuing to spill out secrets. When I got up to go, he asked if he could give me a hug. As often happens to me, he was clothed and I was naked. His hands were warm on my back, his beard soft on the curve of my neck. He held me tight in that giving-good-energy way. He kissed my neck and I said “Oh. Huh.” Then he kissed me pleasantly on the mouth.

It reminded me of the mosh pits of my teenage years, how one minute you’re smushing along with everyone to the music and the next, you’re making out with a stranger. It’s kind of the way I think life should be all the time.

I headed up the hill for the nature walk lead by my favorite magic-y rope guy. The stranger headed up the hill for a nap, a nap that I now realize I probably could have joined. I wouldn’t have missed the hike though. It was lovely and chatty and sweet, and I kept seeing the prettiest white swallowtail butterfly. Everyone kept saying it was following me.

Next time: “That cake flower isn’t going to feed itself to me…”

The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness, Part One: First, Some Backtracking

Before I get to the hot magic that happened yesterday, it’s necessary to go back to a party in a conference hotel room (earlier this year, back during the time when I wasn’t blogging) to properly introduce some characters.

Sweetie and I do a thing sometimes where we’ll get a room at a conference she isn’t interested in. That way, she gets a mini-vacation and she’s right there to come home to after I’m done social-butterflying. This particular time, she was nice enough to turn around when she was almost there to go back home and get the ropes. Because, as you know, she’s the best.

While the year before I’d been shy and barely sure I belonged, this year I spent most of the conference with a favorite co-adventurer, the Lady of the House (of Nude Year’s Eve and Cuddle Party fame) and found out which room the yearly clothing optional party was in.

When Sweetie and I got to the party, the ladies whose room it was were still setting up. People were still doing subdued, beginning-of-the-night chitchat when I stripped down and asked Sweetie to get started with the ropes. I LOVE getting ropes on in mostly-vanilla rooms, but this time it was especially wonderful because once she got the ropes on me, she started talking me through putting them on other people. It gave me a surge of bratty power even more than I normally get. I gave the hostess a nice harness and put a lovely lavender rope corset on the Lady of the House. People oohed and ahhed, probably because my friend is stunning. I put a dragonfly sleeve on the belle-of-the-ball guy with the fullest dance card, and his wife proceeded to torment his restrained self with ice cubes.

My pal Mr. Sweetheart (okay, he didn’t have that nickname until yesterday) was there giving the hostess a sound flogging. I had to wait a while for my turn, but after he’d rested his arm and while the party was still quiet enough that I could be center of attention, he told me in no uncertain terms to bend myself over the posh hotel chair in the middle of the room. It was the best feeling getting flogged while all the nice poly people chatted and looked on. One lady pointed out how my fists balled up when things got harsh. He pummeled my back, my ass, even my boobs, which I don’t usually like getting hurt. The future Mr. Sweetheart was worn out before I was, but I rejoined the party with a sunburny glow and a deep sense of relief. The next ass was in the air for him before he even got a chance to rest.

Jeez, I love a friendly flogging. I’d really like more of those in my day-to-day life.

People kept pouring into the hotel room, and sexytimes started happening in the bedroom. It was my first party where actual sex-acts were taking place, and I liked it, but Sweetie started getting claustrophobic. She also got annoyed that I’d put my special pink ropes on the dragonfly sleeve guy, so I bravely interrupted him mid-blowjob to get them back. He was glad to regain the use of his hands.

Assuring me that she was okay, Sweetie helped me unwind the ropes from the ladies and left me at the party while she went downstairs to lie down. I was all nakedly flirty with a former fireman who’d gotten my attention when he lifted my friend over his head. (This is a recurring theme, I notice…)  All drunk with rope-power and also wine, I told him that by next year, he’d better be ready to pick me up. “Start working on it,” I said, pointing at him imperiously.

Soon enough, the party got to be too crowded for me. I put my pjs on over my ropes and headed for the door.

The trouble was, the room was so crowded that I got stuck behind a lengthy multiperson hug and in front of a nice man with very shiny eyes. Mr. Shiny Eyes didn’t seem to mind that I was wedged against him. He gave me a hug which deftly turned into him grabbing the sides of my harness under my clothes. “”May I?” he asked and “Ohyes” I said. There, all smushed in the crowd, he pulled the roes toward him, back and forth, up and down. As he yanked up hard so that the crotch rope knots hit all the right targets, I let out a squeal, caught fireman guy watching, and felt very successful at being alive. I turned my head to avoid kissing Mr. Shiny Eyes, a mistake I don’t intend to repeat.

The actual festival story makes me a little nervous to write, but I am soooo going to enjoy spending some more quality paragraph time with some of these folks. Stay tuned!

Holy Crap, I Think I Might Have Mental Health.

Yesterday, I had a really irksome consult with a potential therapist. A few weeks ago, I crowd-sourced for depression advice and a facebook friend recommended a lady in the area who’s supposedly progressive.

It’s hard to compress 38 years into a 10 minute phone call, especially since it’s been such a complicated year. First, the lady said I couldn’t be depressed if I was having a good day—fair enough. Then she remarked that I sounded much younger than my age—maybe she thought I was pranking her? But who pranks by appointment? She was bothered by the fact that I sounded too cheerful: “You’re telling me these terrible things, but there’s laugher in your voice.” Jeez, I told you, I was having a good day and plus, what was I supposed to do, break down and cry about it to a stranger recommended by a facebook friend? Plus, in such a short conversation, I didn’t see there being time for histrionics.

Anyway, I wish this lady had just said “I don’t like you.” and left it at that, but she had to get a judgment in.  She said “I just don’t think I would be a good fit. I’ve worked with gay and lesbian clients but I don’t really work with polyamory—I think you have to be EXTREMELY mentally healthy for that.” The poly friend who recommended this lady can be proud of her squeaky-clean psyche, I guess!

I thanked the therapist for being honest, wrote her a strongly worded email (I really am becoming Greenberg…) and argued with her in my head all evening. Sweetie, being Sweetie, thought the lady was so wrong that she shouldn’t even warrant a mention, but she accidentally got me to some fantastic conclusions. Sometimes therapy happens in spite of incompetence, I guess.

First of all, having gone through a bunch of stuff doesn’t mean I’m not mentally healthy. In the past year, I’ve worked my ass off getting certified to teach, got hired right after graduation, and navigated several new relationships and breakups without major aftermath. By writing through it, I processed a lot of junk from the past on my own. My job is a nightmare sometimes but I end most days feeling happy anyway. I may need to find a better school but I know teaching is what I was meant to do.

And what The Man did was shitty, but it came nowhere close to breaking me. Yes, I cried, I freaked, I had pointless arguments on FetLife, but I also fought to change something that wasn’t right and I’m proud of that. When the fight was over, I walked, slept, read, hugged Sweetie, and went back to yoga and church.

I think that’s what mental health looks like. As I write this, I get a warm feeling in my back and shoulders that tells me it’s true. What I took for depression is just a transition, just a fucked-up breakup and a hard job.

There's nothing in my past or present that makes me unqualified for love, however I want to express it. It’s probably okay if people who don’t know me want to think I’m nuts. Yes, I have a lot of work to do. I have to practice hearing myself think, adapting to and working with jealousy, and being kind to myself in the presence of man-smell. But those things won’t be accomplished by delving into the past or by taking myself away from people. They’ll be accomplished by getting closer.

As a new teacher, people want to give me lots and LOTS of ideas to try, but I don’t need a mountain of ideas of how other people think I should be. What I need is to stop drowning out the voice inside me that knows what to do and how to get where I need to go. So thanks, mean stranger therapist-lady, for helping me realize that I had what I needed all along.