girls, girls, girls

So I'm investigating my lesbian side again.  Gerard and I have gone back and forth on this a bit, but in the end I made a profile on a dating site that welcomes casual encounters and thereby opened myself up to casual affairs with women.  And other avenues might be opening soon as well.

Over the years, I've gone back and forth about whether I should identify as bisexual or not.  For a while, I thought not.  Before Gerard and I met, I had had sex with two women, but both experiences were part of a threesome in which the women's husbands were also present and part of the encounter.  I have also had some sexually intimate experiences with my female best friend, but those felt playful and exploratory, grounded in our love as friends more than anything, erotic as they were.  I do remember getting a little thrill when I went to the doctor and checked off the box for both "men" and "women" when they asked me who I have sex with... but I held back from really identifying as bisexual.

Part of the reason for that is that I felt that I didn't have a right to claim myself as a part of the LGBTQ community... I guess because I had never really considered pursuing a woman as a life partner.  I have all the societal privileges of being a straight girl, and I don't think I am attracted enough to women in general to give that up.  It just didn't seem right to pretend to be part of this group if I was never going to have to go through the challenges that are inherent to living a public alternative lifestyle.

It was Gerard who really changed my mind about this.  He just loves that I have a history that includes encounters with women, and that I talk with him about women that I find attractive or sexy.  Eventually he started encouraging me to seek out casual dating and sex with women.  After an amazingly sexy one-time experience with a woman a little over a year ago, I saw that I had more flexibility than I thought I had.

I still feel restraints from my hetero-normative privilege, though they started to seem less central to my argument against the term "bisexual."  There were other arguments that seemed more salient, but they were starting to dissipate fast starting a few months ago.  "But," I had argued to myself, Gerard, or my best friend, "I don't really like giving oral sex to women, at least so far... I don't crave it or wish for it."  The counter-argument is that lots of straight people don't like giving oral sex, but they don't assume that they are gay.  "But," I argued again, "I seem to only be attracted to women who are dominant or who are comfortable assuming a more masculine role."  Again, I was reminded that plenty of people are only drawn to a certain "type," but that doesn't change their sexual orientation.

So then I realized that I was being pretty silly.  Yes, I am bisexual.

That eventually led me to my encounter earlier this year with the beautiful dominatrix.  I couldn't deny anything after that.  Nor could I deny how sad I was when she told me that she couldn't see me anymore, because she wanted to focus on finding a long-term partner instead of just fooling around.

I left the idea of pursuing women alone for a little while.  And then a few weeks ago I started my online profile, only available to other women who wanted to sleep with women.

Soon after that, I heard from my beautiful dominatrix.  She and I were getting together one night for drinks, to talk about something that seemed business-related.  But the meeting location changed from a bar to her apartment.  And then we were there alone, sitting on her couch, flirting.  She has a boyfriend now-- she's had one for several months.  And as we smiled at each other across her couch she let me know that she and her boyfriend had decided to "open things up."  She was available to play again.

We didn't go anywhere that night physically, because she had friends coming over, and they arrived right as I thought she was going to make a move.  But I left her apartment about an hour later feeling extremely amped up.  Her breasts were so beautiful... her legs... I don't think I have ever looked at a woman and responded in that way.  It made my head spin, to be honest.  I made it clear to her that I was interested in getting together again, and the ball is now firmly in her court.  I am still crossing my fingers that she will reach out and say that she's ready for me.

In the meanwhile, I do have a date tonight, with a woman that found me on the dating site.  I don't know what is in store... Despite my history with women (the breadth of which I am rather proud of) I've never been with a lesbian before-- they've all been straight or bisexual-identified.  From her pictures I can't tell anything about how physically attracted to her I will be, but I know that she sounds very interesting-- like someone I would want to be friends with.  And she pursued me... she said that she "enjoyed" my profile several times.  Since I go ahead and say that I am submissive on the profile, I think that might be a good sign.  So we will see what happens.

Gerard is thrilled about all of this.  In his fantasies, I hook up with a woman of a type that *he* would be attracted to-- young-looking, feminine, vulnerable, corruptible-- you know, like ME.  It's a little bit disappointing to him that the type of women that I seem to be most attracted to and compatible with are the ones who are more dominant and masculine.  (I haven't been involved with anyone who was masculine in appearance or general demeanor, but all the women I've explored with since Gerard has known me have enjoyed playing a more masculine role that bounces off of my extreme femininity.)  But since he's not along for the date anyway, he can change any details he wants in his fantasies.  And that seems to have a powerfully positive effect.

So, there you go.  I'll report back about my date, and hopefully have something to share about my dominatrix soon as well.  Girls, girls, girls.  What a fun diversion!

a once-a-month blog

Well, it seems I am beginning to write a once-a-month blog.  Thanks for continuing to check in with me and share your thoughts, even if all I really have to contribute lately are updates.

Earlier this week I told Gerard that I am now the happiest that I have been in four and a half years.  And I really am!  With all the shit that I've been through since early 2007... oh my god, I can't believe that I have finally pulled my way out of the darkness... but I am so grateful that I have.

I am working now.  Not enough-- not yet-- but it's on the horizon, and it's a sure thing (i.e., I know I will have exactly as much work as I'd like, if not more, in the next month or so).  I've made it up the curve in part, and there is more rising up to come in terms of my career.  That means that things are eventually going to improve financially.  (Although that part isn't as important to me-- what I really want is to be doing the work that I love, and I am!)  Every time I leave work I am always thinking about how thrilled I am... I am really good at what I do, and I'm being reminded of that now.  It just feels amazing.

Gerard and I are still happy together as well.  We have really figured out a lot of stuff about being together and how to make it work.  I feel really proud of that.  Furthermore, now that I'm out of the house for two or more full days each week, we've started to have sex more often.  Hooray!  I do NOT get tired of feeling that man inside me.  :)

We've also played around with the idea of creating a spanking contract.  Gerard pulled a Spencer Plan thing off of google a couple of weeks ago, made a few edits, and then told me that I had to sign it.  Later it became clear that this was just a clever method of foreplay, but as we talked about it we decided it might be fun to try it out for real.  We're still negotiating the contracts a bit (I made sure I made him one as well, that says all of his responsibilities as a dominant and spanker), but one thing we've already started practicing is Sunday maintenance spankings.  The punishment and behavior-management aspect of this whole contract thing is extremely arousing to me, I must admit.  So that's a fun little thing that we'll get going on, I suppose.

Oh, one other thing that is contributing to my good spirits is that Gerard and I used money from our respective savings accounts to join a gym around the corner from us.  I have never been one for exercise, but I've gained 7 pounds in the last couple of months, and they are not melting away like they once did.  So we've started going over there together.  We swim, we do exercises together, and Gerard takes yoga classes.  I am really loving it, and feeling like my body is getting toned, even though I definitely haven't lost those 7 pounds.  (I know, I know, muscle weighs more than fat.)  It's a great way to use my extra time.  I sort of wish we had decided to do this sooner!

So that's my July update, friends.  Thanks as always for reading.

a good little redhead

"Be a good little redhead," said Gerard a few hours ago, right before he left.  He's going to be gone for ten days, off on a business trip.  His business might be finally taking off.  We don't know for sure yet, but there are lots of positive signs.  And so he's gone off to see if he can seal the deal.

Things are picking up in my world too.  It seems just about definite that I will soon be off of unemployment, and doing the kind of work that I love again, while still continuing the new initiatives that I've tried to start over the last year.  And, this fall I'm going to be going back to school.  It will be part-time as well, so I can continue the work stuff too.  I could actually be busy again!  That seems like a dream come true.

While we're not quite to the point where we can afford to buy new clothes or go out for nice dinners yet, Gerard and I are starting to feel much more optimistic about our respective career and financial positions.  It's a relief!  And it's also nice to know that we've been able to support each other through all of this.

When I started this blog, I felt that I was very in touch with the imperfections of love and long term relationships.  These days, I can acknowledge the existence of those imperfections-- but they feel less weighty.  Gerard and I rarely fight anymore.  I used to use a green highlighter to mark on my calendar each day when we had a big argument, and I don't even remember where I put that highlighter anymore.  Sure, we get annoyed with each other still.  We occasionally speak harshly with each other still.  But we haven't escalated into an actual *fight* in weeks and weeks.

We still go through periods where we definitely don't have enough sex.  Both of us are still really frustrated by the change in the way we relate to each other sexually (seriously, it was once our absolute strongest area!).  But we also go through periods where we have a very satisfying amount of sex, and a very satisfying quality of sex too.  It seems to vacillate, although I haven't noticed a pattern around which it does that.  I am trying to find relaxation and acceptance around this issue.

So there's not much to report, in terms of the theme and anonymity-assuring parameters that I set for this blog.  I just wanted to check in and let you all know that we're still here.  Even though I don't write very often, I'm still happy to have my connection to the interwebs and all the interesting people I've become acquainted with here over the years.

Here's what I want to believe: that one day in the near future Gerard and I will both be very busy and successful in our work.  We will no longer be confined to the tiny space together for so much of our days, and our finances will no longer confine us to very little beyond making dinner at home and watching TV.  Then life will become more interesting.  We'll be able to play harder, and we'll be looking to connect to each other more in sexual ways.  We'll be able to be more adventurous in day-to-day life, which leads to more excitement and more stories to tell.

Or we'll skip a bunch of the exciting going-out stuff and instead our next big news will be about baby-having.  I'd be okay with that too.  But it's still in the future ahead, not happening immediately.

Anyway, the point is that we're still here and we're still happy.  And hoping to be happier soon.  Thanks for reading.

distant family

Recently, my grandfather passed away, and Gerard and I flew out to a completely different part of the country to attend the funeral.  The trip meant an introduction to over a dozen of my relatives that he has never met (or even much heard about) during our couple of years together.  Before we left for the trip, I wrote the following few paragraphs:

I didn't know my grandfather very well, so the trip isn't emotional.  It will be interesting to introduce Gerard to members of my family that are more distant.  As far as I'm concerned, he's already met all of my family members and friends that have a very important place in my heart.  But on this trip he will meet enough people to fill in the blanks on the Aurelia family tree.  And something about that feels potentially interesting, like I'm letting him peek into a back corner of my closet.


I wasn't socialized to behave like this branch of my family-- in fact, I'm very different from them.  That's part of why none of them really fall under the VIP category of friends and relatives.  Even when I was a child, it was hard to relate to their different way of doing things and their different way of understanding the world.  I could tell that they didn't "get" me or the values that my parents instilled in me.


Here's just a few examples: I was taught to value a kind of uptight dignity, and this part of my family is always silly and teasing.  I was taught to eat healthy foods and carefully watch my appearance, and this part of my family always dresses sloppy and eats terribly.  Consequently, every last one of them is significantly overweight, unhappy about it, and yet also not willing to do anything to change it.  I was taught to appreciate art and culture and all the new things that there are to learn about the world, and this part of my family doesn't care about much beyond NASCAR and the birds that are stopping at the bird feeder.  Being around them is sort of surreal.  And since Gerard shares all of my values that I listed above and he's more rigid than I am in general, I'm a little nervous about the introductions.

And now we're home again, with the trip behind us, and I can report that I had nothing to be nervous about.  The thing is, even though my family members are strangely unlike me in a lot of ways, the main thing that Gerard noticed about them is that they are all "soooo nice."  And though I initially neglected to mention it, it's true.

Gerard sat with my grandmother for hours and asked her questions about my grandfather and their life together, essentially taking a kind of history.  She was absolutely thrilled to have his attention all that time, and he was genuinely interested in hearing her tales.  He took in information about my grandfather, and watched the slideshow of photographs from his younger years, his courtship with my grandmother, and the development of his family.  My cousins gathered around Gerard, charmed by his wide-eyed enthusiasm and interest in them and all things unknown to him.  And my immediate family, who of course has known Gerard for years now, treated him like one of their own, like part of our special clan.

So, the introduction to distant family members was nothing but positive.  They will all remember Gerard and seek him out at future family events-- I have no doubt about it.  And he will get to know them more too.  Introducing him to my weirdo family members did nothing other than make Gerard feel even more like he is my family.

a reality

Gerard and I think that what we're going through is probably not uncommon.  Probably lots of couples go through this, but probably most of them don't try to write sex blogs!

I used to write about us fighting a lot.  Well, we don't do that anymore.  We got over the strain of learning to live together, of being scared of committing to each other.  We still have arguments, but they are much less frequent and much less escalated.  Considering the amount of stress that we're under and the close quarters in which we're both living and working, I think we're doing awesome.

Yeah, we're not having any problem in the companionship area.  We love each other.  We're talking more often about our plan to eventually get married and have a baby, and we're both getting a little bit less freaked out by that every time we discuss it.  We support each other, we work together, we nurture each other... we spend more time together than probably either of us would prefer, but we're making the most of that (in most ways, anyway).  I can say this unequivocally: We're happy.

We're also affectionate.  We hug a lot.  We snuggle.  We touch each other.  Gerard likes to spank me a little bit every day.  We say that we love each other.  He sings me songs; I tell him why I think he's special.  We have no shortage of affection.

But what we do have a shortage of is SEX.  Sometimes I can't believe that we once had the most amazing sex I'd ever had in my entire life.  Yesterday my best friend told me this story about the mind-bending sex she had with her lover, and I couldn't even imagine what that might feel like.  It's been more than three weeks since the last time that I had Gerard inside of me, and sometimes I feel like I'm going to go crazy.

Turns out that he's sexually frustrated too.  He wants to have sex too.  But somehow we're not doing it.  I feel like I initiate with some regularity... but it doesn't work that well when I do.  We both like it when he's the aggressor.  We have better sex when he's the one doing the pursuing, and I'm capitulating to his desires (at least, that's the story we tell ourselves-- and it works!).  But he's not feeling it.  He says he just doesn't feel turned on.

I think some of the problem is intimacy.  Intimacy is scary.  Before he moved in, we always had the distance between our apartments to keep things from getting more intimate than we were ready for.  Then he moved in, and we had fighting to keep us from getting too intimate. But now... now we're here together all the time and we're not fighting.  We're more intimate than we've ever been.  Maybe regular sex would just be more closeness than either of us can handle right now.

But, presumably, we could both work on our intimacy issues and eventually it wouldn't feel so scary anymore, and we'd start having that crazy-perfect sex that was once one of our defining features.  That's the theory that I'm trying to believe in.

In the meanwhile, we have to come up with strategies to help us improve.  Gerard likes it when I explore with girls, so I hit Craig's List last night.  He also asked me to touch him in certain ways more frequently.  I gave him some feedback about the way that he touches me too.  And we're just going to try to be more open to each other.

Because, I'd like to say... having a little intrigue with other people occasionally is fun and titillating, but what I really want-- what I want more than anything else-- is Gerard.  It all starts and ends with him.

Anyway, when I started this blog I said I was going to write about the reality of a long-term relationship between two people who know they're sensitive and damaged.  You readers saw us overcome our fighting and my depression... so now we've got a new problem.  And here I am being embarrassingly honest about it.

I hope you see us get through this one as well.

postponed

Well, I have been postponed by my would-be part-time casual mistress, perhaps forever.

I have to respect her for being honest with me, and for her reasons for backing away.  She said that even though she enjoys playing around, she's realized that her real goal is to have a long-term partner.  So because of that she's not sure how she feels about casual play anymore.  She's also in graduate school, and she has a lot on her plate right now.  She asked me if we could talk about it again in a month, giving her some time to figure out what she feels and wants.

So I totally get where she's coming from.  Don't we all want that kind of connection in our lives?  It's true that casual playing around can distract a person from the quest for an actual partner, and I would never want to deny her that.  But wow, am I disappointed.

She emailed me after that last meeting, you know, and said that there were a lot of things she was interested in doing with me.  Oral sex, she mentioned, and fucking me with her strap-on, and discipline-related stuff.  Being with her was so exhilarating; I was imagining what I would wear when next I saw her, and fantasizing about what she might want me to wear.  I didn't even try to imagine what it would be like to be fucked by her-- I was saving that until the moment when I could actually experience it and know.  I loved our age difference-- she's nine years older than me, just like Gerard-- and I loved our complementarity and the electric attraction between us.  I wanted to be with that a little bit longer.

In her most recent email, the one where she explained her need to table me for now, she asked me to go to her blog to read something she'd shared, and tell her what I thought of it.  The topic was something intellectual that we have in common, but it was all written on the blog that she uses for her professional dominatrix persona.  In other words, this intellectual, academic piece was surrounded by dominant fantasies and words and the general presence of her extremely attractive dominance.  Oh, and photos of her.  So even though I knew she was appealing to our intellectual connection rather than our D/s connection when she asked me to read and share my thoughts on her piece, I couldn't get through it.  It was too distracting, and maybe even a little bit painful, to be in that virtual environment.

I had this yearning, you see... I wanted to go to this part of my sexual self.  The bisexual part, and the submissive part.  I wanted to try it out again.  Gerard used to play the dominant role in my life a lot more, before he moved in and "us" got more complex and messy and emotional.  I thought if I experienced it with her for a little while, it would help me figure out just what I wanted with that kind of sex within my relationship.  My main relationship.

But anyway, I can't blame her for her choice.  I want her to be happy.  I don't know her that well, but I know that finding a long-term partner is more important than getting off with someone that you know will never be serious about you.  I'm crossing my fingers, though, that she wants a little bit of casual playtime now and then while she's on the road to finding her love.  And I told her that I want to stay in touch even if we never end up in her bed together again.  Sigh.

exploring

"You should come sit over here," she said, patting the bed.  She lives in a beautiful, well-kept studio apartment, and the bed was on the opposite side of the room from the couch, where I sat.  I stood up and walked over, sat where she had gestured.

She looked at me for a moment, then commented, "You said you were going to take off your top."

"Oh.  I did, yes."  I sat there for a moment, and then I grabbed my top and pulled it off quickly, dropped it in a pile on the arm of the couch.  I looked up at her, waiting to see what would come next.

I feel this jerkiness and lack of flow as I describe these events.  And I felt that in the moment, too, although it didn't feel as awkward as it now sounds.  I knew I wanted her, so I was propelled forward by my desire, and by the fact that there was no reason not to.  But it was kind of new for me.  Unfamiliar.  I'd never had this kind of rapid meeting and ending up in bed before.  And I'm still pretty inexperienced with women.  And I haven't explored more than Gerard and I's fairly tame version of dominance and submission in years-- but here I was with an experienced dominatrix who wanted to have her way with me.

She stood in front of me and smiled broadly, but not at me.  It was more private, as if she had her own personal joke that I wasn't in on, as if I wouldn't be able to understand it if she told me what it was anyway.  She pushed me back onto the bed, and then climbed on top of me so that she was straddling my waist.  She pinned my wrists over my head and, from her overhead position, regarded me thoughtfully.

She pulled my arms down to my sides then, and pinned my wrists under her knees.  That was the moment when I was reminded that she is experienced and skilled-- I have been pinned down in painful ways more times than I can remember, but this particular method of restraint was entirely comfortable.  I didn't even wonder if I would eventually lose feeling in my wrists, because I knew I wouldn't.

It's hard to tell the story in a linear way after that, because I really let go and just experienced it.  I know that she went quickly to my breasts, grabbing them and pinching my nipples, enjoying my sighs and yelps.  I know that she put her hands on my neck, and I know that she tapped my cheek with that in-between level of force that isn't quite a slap but would be with just a little more energy in it.  I remember gazing up at her face, admiring her until she told me that it wasn't polite to stare.

One of my favorite moments was the one when she moved to my side and grabbed me by my left elbow and left knee, then easily lifted me up on to her lap before flipping me over to my stomach.  Strength and confidence-- they just ooze out of her.  So hot.  By then my jeans were off, and she unclasped my bra once I was face-down, and later pulled my panties off too.  She ran her hands over my back, but paid most attention to my bottom, spanking and grabbing and generally exploring.

It was all teasing, really.  Just stimulating me ever so slightly, physically and mentally... she kept laughing, again like it was all a joke that I wasn't in on.  At one point she leaned down as if to kiss me, and then stopped just before our lips met.  I had that sweet feeling of yearning, where I wanted to feel her lips on mine so badly and yet was afraid to initiate.  Eventually I tried it ever so slightly... she let me kiss her lightly before pulling away and then coming close again.  She allowed the slightest little kisses.  I enjoyed the feeling of being deprived, of being subject to her limits, and of yearning and vulnerability.

She draped my beaded necklace into my mouth, and I felt the silliness of its presence there, but I soaked it up... like a very gentle type of erotic embarrassment.  I heard her doing something over my head-- she had me pinned in a different way now, such that I couldn't see anything that was going on.  It wasn't until much later, after she let me up, that I saw that she was wearing black latex gloves.  They were really striking in appearance.  With them on her hands, she began to explore my body more intimately.  She never exactly penetrated me, but she poked around quite a bit, making me feel objectified and incredibly aroused.

Oh, and she never let me come.  Just teasing.  The whole time.

Later, she told me that she'd been very close to getting her strap-on out of the closet.  We've decided to meet soon to discuss limits and desires.  Gerard says he's happy to be able to give me an adventure that fits into his comfort zone... we've also had a lot more sex since that night than we've had in quite some time.  So this seems to be working well for everyone.  I absolutely can't wait to see her again and explore some more.  How lucky am I to have a skilled, sexy, attractive dominant woman be into me, and a loving boyfriend who welcomes me to go out and explore?

a date

"I feel bad about Gerard-- canceling the original plan, you know, and excluding him."

"Oh, don't feel bad about that."  I waved my hand dismissively.  

"Well, I don't actually feel bad.  I just wanted to acknowledge him, say something to let you know I acknowledge him."

I laughed.  "He has no problem with it at all.  He likes it.  I never really explored anything with girls alone before I met him-- it's really only with his encouragement that I've started to realize that I'm bisexual."

"I don't really want to do the photo shoot anymore," she said, "That was sort of an excuse... to get us talking.  I used to use photo shoots as an excuse to play with people, back when I was in a relationship and I wasn't really allowed to play with people but I was allowed to have photo shoots."

"Well," I said, emboldened by wine, "you really don't need an excuse with me."

***

She and I just have a sexual connection.  We met through a mutual friend... a friend of mine who is kinky and who frequents local BDSM events.  The two of them met in that scene, and then she and I met at a party he hosted.  My eye had been drawn to her as soon as she walked into the room.  I thought she looked perfect... beautiful, fit, confident, sexy.  Later, she asked our mutual friend for a picture of me.  The next time I saw her, she admitted that she'd wanted the picture as an aid to fantasizing during masturbation.  I was more than intrigued.

Gerard isn't attracted to her, which amazes me since her physical appearance is completely his type, and beautiful.  But I think it's just because she's so dominant... he's attracted to vulnerable, submissive girls like me, and she's probably the opposite of that.  So even though Gerard would love for us to get involved with a third person together, he's happy to let me go off alone with her.  He imagined that I might have some submissive fantasies fulfilled with her-- the ones that go farther than what he's interested in.  And I've imagined that too.  She's worked as a professional domine, after all, in addition to being dominant in her private life as well.  How could my fantasies not run wild?

In the week before I met her for a drink, I had three or four sexy dreams about her.  And when we were there in the bar, sitting next to each other, after we'd discussed the non-kinky subjects that we had in common for half an hour or so, I got what I thought of as confirmation of our complementarity.  I mean, I'd been thrilled to come meet her.  She'd made it clear that she was interested in me, and that alone was exciting.  But then she started to talk in more detail about her kinky interests.

I already knew that one of the big things that she is into is the feminization of men.  I don't have any real connection with that kink... in fact, I know very little about it.  But she mentioned that her "twink" had recommended the bar that we were sitting in.  "What's a twink?" I asked.  She explained: it's a man who is interested in allowing her to feminize him-- to make him wear high heels, stockings, panties, and eventually to let her fuck him with her strap-on.  She told me that she'd always been into more feminine men, and that she just loves to dress them up.  

"How is it different with women, then?" I asked.

"It's not really different," she told me.  "I like to do the same things to girls... I like them in the same stockings and panties, really.  I've got this thing for objectification... it's just really arousing for me.  And I like very feminine women, just like I go for feminine-- or gender-neutral-- men."

I laughed.  I couldn't help it.  It's so funny to me how our instincts draw us to people who match us.  Objectification of femininity has got to be one of the main themes of my fantasies.  I shouldn't have been surprised that it was her fantasy too.  Plus, I know that I'm extremely feminine, and it was exciting to know that I fit her desires.  I felt my panties getting a little bit damp as she talked about it.  The idea of being alone with her was so exciting-- and strangely not intimidating, even though I've had very few experiences with women and zero experiences alone with an experienced dominant.  

I let my interest in her be clear.  I don't think of myself as being any good at flirting, so I stumbled through it.  It was probably an odd combination, my usual nonverbal, mostly-inadvertent cues with my very direct blurtings about how compelling and sexy I found her.

Foreign forwardness aside, I think it's fair for me to make this judgment: Flirting with a woman is so different than flirting with a man.  Most notably because I had to try a lot harder.  I still felt like my girly and submissive self, even though I had to initiate a lot more, and put myself out there a lot more than I've ever needed to do with a man.  She kept calling me on my inadvertent flirtatious behaviors-- the subtle batting of my eyelashes, the way I touched my hair.  But I was direct, too.  I told her outright that I'd had sexy dreams about her, and I made it clear that I wanted to be alone with her, although these revelations didn't make her jump to her feet and try to rush me off to her bed, as I know a man would have done.  Also, I kept waiting for her to touch me.  With men, it's so easy.  They're always dying to touch you, and they always initiate touch quickly.  Not so with her.  In fact, she told me there was no assurance she would ever touch me at all.

"If we go back to my apartment, will you take off your top?" she asked at last.

I didn't hesitate (and by the way, this is so unlike me).  "Sure."

"Do you need another drink?"

"No."

"Well, then let's go."

getting hot again

He pinched my nipple-- not very hard-- and I yelped.  It had been aching since I'd gotten up that morning, and Gerard knew it.  I didn't bother opening my eyes to see him smile.  He doesn't necessarily want to be a sadist, and he hasn't acted like one in months.  But it always amuses him to see me just a little bit tortured.  Even if the initial torture wasn't at his hands.

With one swift motion, he removed my jeans and panties.  Then he flipped me over to my stomach.  I was lying horizontally across the bed, my eyes looking down onto the hardwood floor.  Gerard smacked my bottom and I cringed at the sting.  It hadn't hurt last night at all... I hadn't even thought that she had spanked me that hard... but when Gerard gave me a friendly smack earlier in the day, it hurt a lot more than it was supposed to, and I realized that I had taken more than I thought I had.  Or maybe my bottom was just out of practice.

Gerard pulled me up onto my knees, and I felt him pressing himself against me, then pulling away and smacking my bottom again.  "That hurts, doesn't it?" he asked condescendingly.  "This is what happens when you let other people do what they want with you... aren't you embarrassed?"

My face flushed.  He knows that this type of gentle humiliation is erotic to me, but he has rarely used his knowledge.  I buried my face in the bedspread.

"I'm waiting for your answer, Aurelia.  I said, aren't you embarrassed?"

"Yes!" I relented.  Through my arousal, I marveled at how much he was nailing it, saying everything right, being so dominant, and clearly having so much fun.  We hadn't had sex like this in months.  It reminded me of how hot we were when we first got together.

He spanked me some more and I whined, "Ow, it hurts!"

"And do you deserve it?"

"Yes!"

His clothes were off, and he was inside of me.  He moved me so I was flat on my tummy.  The palms of my hands laid against the floor, supporting me against the force of his body over me, and I rotated my hips so that my bottom lifted up to meet him.  He slammed into me.  "Does this hurt your bottom a little bit, having me fuck you so hard?" he asked.  It didn't, but I told him yes anyway, because it was hot to me to think that it could hurt, and I knew that was what he wanted to hear.

I had two amazing orgasms, and then Gerard flipped me over to my back and lifted my legs over my head.  This position hurts me if I'm not aroused enough.  I haven't tolerated it for a long time.  But tonight I complied-- maybe because I was feeling really submissive in a way that I haven't for a while, or maybe because Gerard was feeling dominant in a way that he hasn't for a while.  I was turned on enough that it felt completely natural.  I screamed with pleasure until he came inside of me.  

And I was on cloud nine.  Suddenly, we have found our sexual connection again.  After months of meaningful lovemaking, full of intimacy but lacking the sexual oomph that defined us for so much of our relationship, we are HOT again.  

histories

It's weird for me to think that Gerard and I have been together for almost two and a half years now.  We've definitely passed the point of "significant life investment."  In fact, I feel us moving to more and more official, grounded commitment.  It's scary for both of us, but it's feeling less scary lately.  And I've finally realized that, for Gerard and I, this is a pretty fucking big deal.

We both have big histories, relationship-wise.  In a way, it's kind of odd that neither of us has already been married, because we're both romantics, and we both place a high value on love relationships and falling in love.  We've both had passionate love affairs in our past... long relationships and big commitments... major life steps taken while holding the hand of another (at-the-time) treasured person.

We've both lived with other partners in the past.  I've lived with two other men, Gerard has shared an address with three other women, plus several who traveled around with him for various periods of time while he was living in a camper van in Australia.  We've both thought, in the past, that we had met the person we were going to make the lifetime go with.  I've been engaged twice, and Gerard bought a condo with his most recent ex before me.

That's our respective relationship histories, of course.  We also each have pretty extensive sexual histories.  My history includes several threesomes with married couples and male friends of boyfriends, plus a couple encounters with girls.  Most significantly, I spent a year and a half living as the submissive pet of a dominant couple, which led me to all kinds of crazy sexual adventures.  Gerard's history isn't so kinky, but he eclipses me with his sheer quantity of past escapades.  It seems that his sweet, unassuming charm has never failed him with getting a woman into bed, whether that meant a quickie in the restroom at a wedding reception or a week in the back of his camper van.  In a way, Gerard feels to me like a mythical kind of man, the kind that I never thought I'd actually know personally-- like a character in a Hugh Grant film or something.  But then again, maybe I too have some kind of crazy archetype that could be assigned to me based on my sexual history.

When we first got together, I think we were both taken aback by the other.  Gerard didn't imagine that a girl like me would be satisfied being with one man... I didn't imagine that life with me could ever measure up to the romantic globe-skipping he'd done with all those flings of the past.  But we still each respected what the other brought to the table, and saw the ways that our pasts molded us into a person that the other could fall in love with.  And gradually we realized that we were looking for the same thing: a stable, passionate love relationship with one permanent partner.  Our histories didn't change that-- it just showed how much we were both willing, throughout our pasts, to explore and forage for new experiences on our paths of self- and other-discovery.

And now, after two and a half years together and nine months living together, the histories aren't so important anymore.  Maybe some of that is feeling the weight of our history, and what we have created together.  I mean, it's not all that much in terms of time... but the amount of investment we've made in each other in these two and a half years makes it feel like more.  The histories are still important... we each keep those volumes on our shelf, and we revere them-- but now we're fully invested in the the life's work that we're going to write together.  We're writing it every day, and every day the words flow with more ease and sincerity and promise.

sunny days

It's gotten to that time of year right before Daylight Savings Time begins, when the mornings are really sunny.  In our cold climate, it's still really cold-- but the birds are starting to sing in the mornings, and the sunshine is bringing people outside.  Gerard and I live in a first-floor apartment with our bedroom windows looking out on the street, and we often hear little strollers or scooters going by in the early hours of sunshine, adorable under-5-year-olds emitting cute comments to their parents or nannies.  I'm getting out of bed earlier now, sometimes earlier than Gerard, and writing in my journal or prepping breakfast for both of us.  And it's so weird to realize what a change this is.

Without getting into details about why, I would like to share that I'm a VERY educated consumer when it comes to the topic of mental health.  And I've always avoided psychopharmacology because... well, even though I know I've always been sort of anxious, I always felt like I knew what the problem was stemming from, and I wanted to work it out psychically instead of using meds.

I already mentioned all this in a previous post-- but basically the stressors of unemployment were too much, I was feeling unbelievably miserable without pause, and I knew it was time.  And now that I'm feeling so much better, I'm shocked by the change.  Gerard has stopped commenting about how different I seem, but I've slowly been considering his perspective, as he's expressed it over the course of many months.  Especially since we moved in together last summer, he's often said that he thinks of me as a pessimistic person.  And that always felt so strange, because I've always considered myself to be pretty sunny.

Here's the thing, though.  My life has been very clearly the opposite of sunny for a while.  I've been pretty slammed for the past several years, and just trying to pull myself out of it.  And so it sort of makes sense that I became someone who seemed kind of dark, and that I presented myself that way when Gerard and I met and for most of our relationship so far.

Four years ago, I was engaged and had been living with a man for three years.  The wedding was six months away (invitations already printed) when suddenly one day he went into a rage and threw me out of the house, asking for the ring back, canceling everything.  One month later my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I got a new job and moved to a city near my parents, and four months later I was fired after I tried to stop some unethical behavior in the department I was responsible for. Two weeks after that, my mom was pronounced terminal and brought home on hospice.  For a little over a month, I took care of her at her home, until she finally died.  She was only 56 years old.

Then I spent a year grieving heavily.  For that entire first year, I was constantly sick with all kinds of crazy ailments, and I was an emotional wreck.  I started working very part-time about a month and a half after my mother died, and then slowly added more working time to my week as I could.  I met Gerard while I was trying to stabilize myself... understand my grieving and also continue to put my life together in some way.  And I continued to do that during the first year of our relationship.  There were all the anniversaries, there was the trauma of my father starting a new relationship... but I was getting through those things.  I felt like I was starting to move towards being firmly planted as of this time last year.  And then I lost my job (a job I loved).  It just brought back all the waves of loss.  And then Gerard moved in, and we had all this adjusting to do... well.  It's been a difficult four years.

I know I haven't been sunny during this whole time.  How could I have been, honestly?  I shouldn't be surprised.  But starting to feel sunny now makes me realize the difference.  And I don't mind if it's drug-induced, because I need a reminder of the person that I'm able to be.  I need Gerard to see that the girl he fell in love with isn't always so dark.  It makes him feel more secure about us, and more loved, and that's better for me too!  With these boosts, I think I can make my dreams happen, and then I can go off of the meds and enter a world without crises waiting around every corner.  And that will be a welcome change.

sexual side effects

We'd watched half of The Sheltering Sky, part of the time with my hand rubbing his cock through his pajama bottoms.  Another part of the time I'd lain myself across his lap, and he stroked and patted my bottom until I drifted into sensual bliss.

When we turned off the film, halfway through, we went to the bedroom but not to bed.  Gerard took out his computer and started doing work, even though it was well past 11pm.  I sprawled out on the bed, my face near to his side of the room (where his desk is crammed in among his dressers and our laundry hamper).  "You've made me want to masturbate," I told him.

"What's stopping you?" he replied.  This was a welcome invitation, as in the past he's discouraged me from pleasuring myself in his presence.  Seeing me in fits from self-stimulated orgasm has in the past rendered Gerard incapable of staying focused on work or sleep or whatever else he's wanting or needing to get done.  But apparently his self-control has grown in the past few months.

I reached over to my bedside table and grabbed the vibrator.  Though I admit I was a little bit hesitant.  I'd been warned that my antidepressant can have sexual side effects, and I didn't want to moan and bump around on the vibrator for 20 minutes only to end in frustration.  I'd had that happen once already.  And the last time that Gerard and I had had sex, my vaginal orgasms were weaker than usual.  But this didn't seem like a definite indication of a change.  I decided to be optimistic.

I always masturbate on my stomach, with the vibrator against the outer fabric of my panties.  Gerard watched me get into place, and I tried to ignore him.  I flipped it on, and felt its comforting buzz.  I closed my eyes, my body relaxed slightly, and I moaned.

A moment later I opened my eyes, and I saw Gerard holding his phone, taking a video.  "I love the way your ass bumps up and down," he told me, his voice breathy with arousal.  I giggled and tried to ignore him.  The presence of the camera turned me on more, and I could feel the extra kick in the buzz between my legs.

But I was having some trouble.  None of my usual fantasy avenues were putting me on the road to climax.  There are lots of images and situations that usually come to my mind in such moments, and work to easily send me over the edge, and none of them were working.  I started to flip through my mental catalogue more frantically, retrying my favorites, and nothing was happening.

I now wanted to come more than ever, partly to please Gerard and partly to assure myself that I was not going to succumb to the sexual side effects.  I thought of the psychiatrist who initially prescribed this medication, who told me that a decrease in libido or in ability to reach orgasm could happen.

I hadn't liked this psychiatrist, and have since found someone else to work with instead.  When I met with him, he was crass-- telling me to wait in his office while he went to "the john," and that he really wasn't interested in being in contact with my therapist.  He was portly and, while nice enough, barely asked me a thing about myself and what had driven me to seek a psychopharmacologist.  Just found a box to put me into and left it at that.  Also, he had an obvious sexual interest in me.  He'd looked at me a little too long, with a little bit too much attention, after he told me about the sexual side effects.  And earlier in our meeting he'd said, "You're a very attractive girl.  Men have probably been hitting on you your whole life."  I'd just met his gaze and said, "Yes, that's true," as if it was a totally normal thing for a professional to say to a client out of nowhere-- but it's not.

It was creepy.  Yet, as I thought about it... well, its creepiness started to feel a little bit erotic.  There I was, alone with this man-- this man who was large and could easily have overpowered me, this man who was on the up side of the fiduciary relationship and was obviously already pushing the boundaries a little bit.  He'd seen my vulnerability and he believed that he could go ahead, just say those things, let his mind wander about me and not hide the fact that it was.  He was taking liberties, even if they'd been relatively harmless.  (I mean, it lost him a client (and any chance at future referrals from me or anyone I know), but I didn't have a breakdown or threaten to sue or even confront him.)

I'd been masturbating for 20 minutes already, and I had finally come upon a thought that was hitting the button.  I was a little weirded out with myself, but I really wanted that orgasm.  I imagined him grabbing me by the arm, pulling me out of my chair, bending me over his desk, lifting my skirt.  I imagined how totally grossed out I would be, and how scared and vulnerable.  I did NOT want to imagine him fucking me, but I imagined him thinking about it, touching me in ways that are deplorable, taking advantage of my vulnerability.  I imagined him spanking me and talking down to me, with that self-satisfied superiority that he had through our entire meeting.

Bam.  There was my orgasm.  It was a great one too-- loud and thorough.  I banged my temple against the softness of the comforter, and cried out, gasping for breath and then slowing down again eventually.  I wasn't able to push to a second one, which was disappointing, but I usually need a second fantasy on hand to make a second orgasm happen, and I already knew I'd run out of ideas.  Plus, I was just slightly grossed out by what had actually pushed me over the edge.

That was out of my mind pretty quickly, though, when Gerard caught his breath and I opened my eyes to see him smiling at me.  He slid his hand down my back and then gave my bottom a few firm swats.  They served to extend the physical sensation of the orgasm just a little bit longer.  "Don't stop," Gerard urged me.  "I love to see your pleasure."  He leaned down and we kissed.

A moment later I flipped off the vibrator.  I snuggled under the covers, and Gerard joined me, laying his arm around my middle and pulling me into the curve of his body.

blowing away the dust

Well, it's been hard to write for the last couple of weeks.  I really hit a dark spot, and didn't quite know what to do with myself.  Ranting here helped me, of course... and I also made a decision to try going on anti-anxiety medication.  My work has picked up enough to give me motivation to keep pushing forward, and I'm considering going back to school for another degree.  That would at least keep me busy, right?

Going on the meds was a much less difficult decision than I was expecting.  I've always been kind of an anxious person, but I wanted to push my way through with psychotherapy rather than using a chemical fix.  Still, despite my resistance in the past, it was very easy for me to just go for it this time.  I was down so low, I knew it was time.  And, weirdly enough, it seems to have made an impact.  I don't really feel any differently... but Gerard says that he has noticed a change.  Things that would have upset me two weeks ago are rolling right by, he says, and I'm smiling more.  Also, I've stopped struggling with insomnia.  So I'm grateful for the change.  Although I still feel anxious, physically, I'm apparently much less reactive and irritable than I have been.  And that has the potential to make a big difference in multiple areas of my life.

February is almost over, and Gerard and I have only had two fights.  This is a record for us since he moved in last summer.  And, the fights were less escalated than they have been in the past.  I'm embarrassed to say that, often in the past, we've gotten so freaked out about how upset we are that one or both of us starts talking about what it would mean to break up.  But we stayed calm this month, and focused on our commitment to each other, even when we were both scared.  That's big.

So, I'm continuing to work on life, trying to keep my head up.  It makes a difference when there are little things giving me validation along the way.  My dog is doing much better, at last.  I've even found a less expensive option for medicating her, which is a relief.  I've also recently made some new friends.

We're already getting reminders of the upcoming windiness of March.  Though I hate the bitterness of wind chill, I'm trying to think of it symbolically: Let the wind blow away the bad stuff, and blow in the new opportunities and elevated moods.  I'm ready.

rant

Hello, blog-friends.  Today I'm not going to write about love or sex or even romantic struggles.  Today I'm just going to write about struggles.  Today I'm going to write about how I feel like the universe is out to get to me.  Is this melodrama?  I really can't tell the difference anymore between my life and melodrama.  I can tell you that it doesn't feel like melodrama.  I can tell you that it feels bad.  Bad.  Hearing how other people have it worse will not make me feel better, not even a little.  Please don't give me those lines.

I have been trying to make my career work, since I lost my wonderful amazing job last spring, by piecing together other work here and there.  But this is quite an undertaking... it involves a pretty constant experience of rejection.  I'm not sure why it has been that way, because I know that I'm really, really good at what I do, and really qualified.  And other people way less skilled than I am are making money in this career.  Yet, I am not. In the past few weeks, I've had the experience of having one of my mentors stab me in the back.  I've had the experience of making a pretty huge monetary investment in a client only to have that client disappear before he returned on his investment.  I've had colleagues take me for granted, and other colleagues treat me as though I have nothing to offer.

Also-- health.  I have dermatitis, and it's covering my body.  I have to take baths in bleach. And I have to take steroids that make me sick to my stomach.  Looking now to a different organ system, my health insurance has stopped paying for my birth control pills.  This freaks Gerard out because he knows that I start crying every time I go on Facebook and find out that another three people are pregnant and I am not.  We can't take care of a baby right now, as we are already having a pretty hard time taking care of ourselves, and that sucks.  So it makes having sex feel complicated.  Even though we could both really stand to get laid right now.

And, my dog.  She has a hot spot and it's been impossible to take care of.  I have to put her in an Elizabethan collar, which makes her cry because it's already too hot in our apartment and she doesn't feel good stuck inside that "cone of shame."  But when I have it off of her, I could turn my head away for 2 minutes and then suddenly 3 days of healing go to hell when she gets to scratching.  And I paid $80 for the antibiotics that she's on, plus $90 for the steroids to help control her incessant itching.  That's $170 that I do not have.

Last night Gerard and I decided to order Chinese food, because usually getting takeout from a Chinese takeout place is cheaper than actually buying food and cooking it, and we were feeling stressed out and not in a good cooking place.  But somehow we calculated wrong and we ended up paying more than we intended for this food, and then on top of that it was really crappy food.  And then I just did it again-- I went out and bought disgusting high fructose corn syrup cookies, thinking that it would just be a guilty pleasure that would give me a feeling of relief.  But they were way too expensive too, and now that I've eaten 3 I wish I would have just skipped it.

I just need to rave today, and I can't do it on Facebook because I have too many professional colleagues there.  I have to seem like I'm making it work to the outside world, even though my actual feelings are that everything is falling apart.

space and reassurance

Gerard and I are apparently like most couples in that we have different/opposing needs when it comes to feeling safe and loved.  There are people out there in this world who feel safest when they have space-- who want to have space if they get upset, and generally, if you pressed them, would tell you that they sometimes worry about not getting enough space in their intimate relationship.  Gerard is like this.  Then there are other people in the world who feel safest when they have togetherness and plenty of reassurance.  These people are like me, and they want to "talk it out" right away if they get upset.  If you pressed them, they might tell you that they sometimes worry about not getting enough togetherness in their intimate relationship.

I've found this difference between Gerard and I to be challenging right from the first few months of our relationship.  Though apparently we are not unusual-- most couples usually have one of each type.  And of course, the source of these feelings and behaviors go back to early, early childhood.  People who are like me generally didn't get enough snuggling and doting from their parents, and people like Gerard didn't get enough space to grow and be separate from their parents.  (I'm not suggesting that Gerard or I or anyone, necessarily, was abused or has terrible pathology because of such parental missteps-- it's fairly easy for parents to mess this up in at least some way.)  And, like everything that happens when we're under 5 years old, it has a pretty strong effect on who we become and what happens in our intimate relationships as adults.

Lately, Gerard and I have been looking more closely at our disparate needs and tendencies in the context of arguments.  Every time that we have an argument, even a ridiculous one-- and we have a lot of the ridiculous ones, being on top of each other almost 24/7 in this teeny apartment-- we both immediately feel a strong pull to our respective sides of this issue.  Gerard says, "I'm mad, you have to give me space," and I say, "I'm upset, you have to talk with me to work this out."

I don't mind telling you that Gerard tends to get a little bit self-righteous in these situations.  "Anyone will tell you that my way is healthier," he said once.  Of course, I did my best to correct him.  But it was hard to get it through his head that it's just as difficult for me to give him an hour of space (overcoming my anxiety and need to have things feel okay again) as it is for him to give me any reasonable discussion when he feels unable to overcome his anger and desire to be alone.  And I guess it was his lack of understanding (combined with some defensiveness) that kept him from seeing my side, and how we were both asking each other for something very difficult and contrary to our natural ways of being.

I worried, as I am wont to do, that we'd end up at an impasse.  Gerard was being really stubborn, insisting that he wasn't capable of adjusting his behavior, and I told him I wasn't willing to always do it his way.  When he needs space and I'm really upset, I often spend the entire duration of "space" crying-- and I can't sign up for having to do that every time we have a little tiff.  I held my ground insistently, and I didn't see how it could be resolved.  We went to bed and didn't touch each other all night.  

But then in the morning Gerard made me waffles.  And he said, "We've never talked about the problem in this way before.  This is a new insight, and I think just knowing it will help us to do better.  Everything's going to be fine.  I would do anything-- anything I can-- for you, and I know we'll work this out."

silly songs

One of the things that I have always loved about Gerard is the way that he loves to sing.  He won't readily admit that he loves to sing-- he's spent enough time around professional musicians that he has no desire to flaunt his untrained voice.  But he does love to sing, and I know that he does because he sings all the time.

I come from a musical family and have studied music for most of my life, so I was delighted when I was first exposed to Gerard's penchant for song.  Early in our relationship, he would often sing to me in the mornings, while we were lying together in bed after a sweet sleep or early morning lovemaking.  He'd usually choose old jazz standards, or songs from Broadway musicals.  It was enchanting.

I have an absurd memory for lyrics, and Gerard not so much.  Over time this has developed into a dynamic wherein Gerard begins a song with the correct lyrics and then gradually devolves into some crazy bastardization of the original rhymes, and then looks at me between his giggles for whatever the correction might be.

Other times, he'll look up the lyrics to a song on the computer, and then sing his way through the whole song.  Usually once he's done he'll turn the monitor towards me and say, "Now you do it.  Can you play your guitar too?"  He loves to hear me sing and play, and sometimes will happily take care of all the dinner dishes by himself if I'm serenading him with my voice, the guitar, or the piano while he does so.  Of course, it's more fun for me when he's singing along rather than just listening.

Most entertaining of all is what seems to be Gerard's favorite type of singing: he improvises spontaneous song parodies.  (For those of you not familiar with this idiom, it involves taking the tune and lyrical structure of a well-known song and changing the words to something else entirely.)  Sometimes he sings these to the dog, with words usually focused on the themes of the dog being hungry and Gerard coming to feed her.  But most of the time he sings the song parodies to me.  The subject matter of these song parodies is typically related to how much Gerard loves me, and eventually that tends to turn into, or at least mention, how much he loves my bottom.

Here's an example (to the tune of "Down in the Valley"):
I love my Aureeeeeeeeeeeelia
I love her so
I love her bottom
I want her to know

Another recent song (performed while pinning me down to the bed) used some villain-like melody that I didn't recognize and went as follows:
I'm a scoundrel who steals body parts in the middle of the night
And I'll take your left arm, your breast, and your bottom to do with what I like!


As I write this, I'm struck by how odd it feels to be telling this story.  It sounds like the sort of thing that you'd watch in a dopey sitcom.  And yet it brings endless delight and giggles to our life.  I imagine that one day Gerard will be making up cute little songs for our child, and that that child will grow up with an appreciation for music and the creative use of words and rhymes.  What could be nicer?

the right answers

Though I've done a lot of kinky things in my day, my core sexual interests are pretty tame.  I'm into submission, and I'm game for bondage, but my main thing is that I like to have my bottom smacked, patted, and paddled... and I just always have.  I've heard Dan Savage tell callers on his podcast that any reasonable sex partner should be game to do some spanking-- in the grand scheme of things, it's a very mild kink.

But there are some specific feelings and tones that I want to go along with my spankings.  It's not just about the physical sensation for me-- the fantasy involves certain attitudes and motivations in addition to the bottom-smacking.  I'm aware that some partners might struggle with my craving for a paternalistic tone along with the physical act... though, luckily for me, Gerard does not.  It took him a few months to really get on board with my kink, but once he did so, he never looked back.  I now have no doubt that the spankings I receive from him are just as pleasurable for him as they are for me.

Still, valiant good-giving-game partner though he may be, Gerard doesn't always get every bit of the mood-setting and fantasy words exactly right.  And I've noticed that when we have sex less often, I need the sex that we do have to be more on-the-mark in order for me to really enjoy it.  So I told him I'd write up a little blog entry where I'd give him some examples of things that I want to hear, words that would really do it for me when we're moving towards coitus.  I thought that would be a fun and sexy thing to share.  And for simplicity's sake, I thought I'd just present it with questions I might ask him in such moments, or "protestations" that I might make, followed by the best answer that I'd hope to hear from him.

Here goes.

Are you going to spank me?
Yes.  (This one isn't complicated-- I'd rather hear "yes" than any kind of more role-play-like answer.  Though that doesn't mean I want this to be the end of the conversation...)

But why are you going to spank me?
Because I think it's the right thing for you right now.  It was your responsibility to do x, and you didn't do it.  You know that means that you're going to end up over my knee.

Now, sometimes Gerard will spank me because I've done something "wrong," like leaving the bathroom a mess or forgetting to do something I promised.  Other times, he will spank me because I am behaving in a moody way, and he knows that a spanking will help me to feel centered.  So in those cases, here's a different response:

Because I think it's the right thing for you right now.  Sometimes you just need to be reminded that I have things under control, and that I can take care of you.  And sometimes taking care of you means spanking your cute little bottom-- even if you say you don't like it.  And I'm not going to stop until I think you understand that.

No, please don't use the paddle!

I know that you don't like this paddle, baby, but that's why I'm going to use it.  I think you need a stronger message than what I can portray with just my hand.  


But I don't want you to spank me.
This isn't about what you want, it's about what you need.  You put me in charge of deciding when you need to be spanked, and I say that right now you need to be spanked-- until your bottom is very pink and sore.


Not fair!
This part of our relationship isn't supposed to be fair.  And while I kind of enjoy how cute it is when you pout, in the long run it's probably just going to get you spanked even harder.


Ow!  That's enough-- it hurts!
I know it hurts-- that's the point.  I want this to help you remember that I'm keeping my eye on you, and that I want you to be a good girl.  Do you think you're going to remember that, or am I going to be taking you over my knee again tomorrow night?


Hmmm... I think that's all I can think of for now, just as a general starting point.  Basically I like him to be firm but very loving, and a little bit condescending.  I like hearing that he's giving me what he thinks I need, and that he's thinking about taking care of me.  And I like hearing that he thinks I'm cute.

This little list is nowhere near exhaustive, of course, and that makes me think this: I know I have some readers who love giving or receiving a good spanking as much as Gerard and I.  Do you want to share any key words or phrases that push your buttons, or that seem to have a powerful effect on your partner?

considering open relationships

Over the holidays, Gerard and I had a chance to spend a lot of time with his sister and brother-in-law.  They've been married for five years, and they have a ten-month-old baby.  I really like both of them-- they are smart and thoughtful people, although certainly much more conservative than me.  They live in the suburbs, drive an SUV, shop at Walmart, and mainly socialize with the people in their culdesac.  They live in a bubble and they like it that way.

One day the four of us were driving together somewhere, and we were talking about marriage and relationships, and what it's like having a baby.  Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Gerard's brother-in-law commented, "Those people out there who think that they can have an 'open relationship' are completely fooling themselves.  That's just not the way that human beings are wired, and those types of relationships never work out."

He went on for a little while, and I was a bit shocked, listening to him.  I thought I let a decent amount of time pass before countering, "That's certainly not true. Lots of people have successful open relationships, and there's lots of evidence indicating that monogamy is not the 'natural state' for human beings."

"Like what?" he demanded, his voice gaining momentum and energy bordering on aggression.  "What specific research studies can you cite that have proven that monogamy isn't the natural state for humans?"

And so began a very interesting conversation.  Gerard's sister and brother-in-law were hell-bent on believing that monogamy is the only way to have a loving partnership.  I tried telling them about several couples that I know who have successful open marriages, and they reacted first with disbelief ("yeah, but how long have they been together?") and then with dismissal ("okay, maybe they've been married way longer than us, but that's still not that long and anyway that's not that many examples").  

An interesting element to their disbelief was that they imagined non-monogamous relationships as across-the-board betrayals.  I explained that, in healthy polyamorous relationships, the couple agrees to the terms, and that the primary relationship gets first priority.  This was very difficult for them to wrap their heads around.  Gerard's sister countered, "So if the wife didn't like one of the husband's other partners, she could say 'I want you to stop seeing her' and he would?"  I could tell that she was taken aback when I answered, "Yes, exactly."

They were also applying odd reasoning to the whole idea.  "By sleeping with other people, you're putting your family at risk because you could catch STD's."  It seemed like it was difficult for them to imagine that a person might apply the same principles that kept them safe during conventional dating (such as honest conversations, regular testing, and condoms) to their "piece on the side" relationships.

We went round and round for a while, and the discussion sort of ended at a draw.  Gerard's sister seemed to have a slightly wider perspective after hearing us out, but her husband was stubbornly holding his position.  He insisted that my experience is skewed because I live in a big city and that the rest of the world is much more conservative and similar to him than my "sample."  We let the topic go-- although later I did email them both a number of links to articles describing the research about monogamy (he did ask for it).  Neither of them replied.

It was sort of funny for Gerard and I to be championing open relationships together.  I would say that we don't have an open relationship, though I suppose that's somewhat debatable.  Gerard isn't allowed to pursue sexual relationships with other women, and I'm not allowed to pursue sexual relationships with other men.  However, I am allowed to pursue sexual relationships with women.  Twice since we met I have had encounters with women-- once with my best friend, and once with a girl I met on Craigslist for that express purpose.  

It's interesting to note that, in both cases, Gerard had some feelings of jealousy in addition to his arousal, even though the whole thing was his idea.  The sister and brother-in-law were using jealousy as evidence that human beings were intended for monogamy.  "Relationships are complex," I told them.  "I'm not saying that there is never jealousy.  The people who choose these types of relationships have to make the choice to address those feelings when they come up-- they don't ignore them or pretend not to have them.  These sorts of things can be fine when they're talked about and worked through."  I think that Gerard would say that his jealousy was not as strong as his arousal and motivation to see me sleep with women.  And though I don't have a secondary partner in my life right now, we both have positive associations with our experiences in the past, and Gerard would be thrilled if I were to find someone new to get involved with.

We've always talked about someday opening our relationship more.  I admit that I do like the idea that Gerard won't be the only man that I sleep with for the rest of my life, even if he becomes my husband and the father of my hypothetical baby.  And I like the idea of being secure enough in our bond that I'd be willing to let him have an encounter with another woman at some point.  Right now, I don't think we're being pulled in that direction-- but we're in agreement that we're open to going there one day.

I was disappointed by that conversation with Gerard's family.  It's hard to be reminded that there are such judgmental and closed-minded people in the world, and to realize that some of those judgmental and closed-minded people are actually lovely to be around most of the time!  Dan Savage often points out that it's our preoccupation with monogamy that contributes to many couples' struggles, and suggests that monogamy would actually be easier if we were willing to give ourselves credit for the hard work that it involves, to realize that it's okay and natural to be attracted to people besides our partners and to want to have sex with those people.  To empower ourselves in our choice: to pursue the ups and downs of polyamory or to work our way through monogamy, and to actively address the joys and pitfalls of whichever one we choose.

Here are some of the sources about non-monogamy research that I sent to the sister and brother-in-law:

Sex at Dawn

Seed Magazine's Sexy Beasts article

The Double Life of Woman (has some passing references to evolutionary theory)

Salon's interview with the author of Lust in Translation

The Guardian's interview with the author of Mating in Captivity

vulnerability

The researcher and storyteller Brene Brown says that living wholeheartedly means fully investing yourself in life (in endeavors, in relationships, etc.) and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, even while knowing, and acknowledging, that you have no guarantee of success.  And I feel that vulnerability today, as I create a space for (anonymous) public exposure of my relationship and my oh-so-vulnerable investment in Gerard, the man that I love.

Imagine us, if you will.  We are young enough to still call ourselves young, but old enough to know that that won't be the case for too much longer.  We cohabit in a tiny, rundown cave of an apartment in a vibrant neighborhood of an amazing American city.  We have a dog, a piano, and matching laptops.  We've painted our kitchen yellow.

When we first met and started dating, it was our sexual chemistry that seemed the most promising element of our burgeoning love affair.  I had a kinky past, and Gerard was experienced in sexual adventure and seduction.  We came together like magnets, and we each had the kinds of sexual behaviors and proclivities that the other craved.  As we continued to date, we would sometimes find that socializing with other couples was difficult because the sexual energy between us was so powerful that it overwhelmed or embarrassed our friends.

These days... well, we both laugh and shake our heads with amazement when we acknowledge that we seem to have hit a point where sex isn't one of the most important elements of our relationship anymore.  It's strange, and sometimes challenging.  We both want to keep having amazing sex, and our days are full of meaningful, affectionate and often sexual touches and caresses.  But I know when we moved in together six months ago we both thought we'd be having sex more often than we are.  It's not disgraceful, but we could definitely be taking advantage of each other a lot more often.

I think that closeness, intimacy, and vulnerability have challenged us.  When I think back to our early relationship, I remember that, once we'd been seeing each other long enough to realize we had something sustainably special, Gerard completely pulled away.  He kept me at arm's length emotionally for months before he was ready to give in and fall in love.  After that, we ebbed and flowed with our closeness and fear.  We talked about living together for over a year before I finally said, "Move in or I'm moving on."  With that push, Gerard was reluctantly willing to go ahead-- but then we both reeled emotionally from the change and the resulting feelings in each of us.  Six months later, I think we're just finally getting used to it.  And we're both glad that we did it-- we're closer and less scared of our love now that we share a space and a life.

Big questions loom ahead, of course-- the biggest and most vulnerable ones of all.  From many directions, Gerard and I are both receiving information that suggests big commitments for our future.  Our careers are in flux... there's some indication that we might do well to relocate to a completely different part of the country... our siblings are settling down and family life feels more appealing... and I've decided I want a baby.

But just because the signs point us this way doesn't mean that we're ready!  I want us to be ready to get married and go off birth control and buy a property with a baby room... but we're not, not on any level.  Though... perhaps we are ready to start working on being ready.  And that is where this blog begins-- right in that place where we acknowledge our vulnerability, prepare to confront it, and wait to see what happens.