Monday, February 28, 2011

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.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

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.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

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.