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.