Traitor

A few days ago I messaged Minx on Facebook and gave her a debriefing of what had happened with Dandette – the sexual assault, the thing with the sword, her leaving, all of that.  Minx and Dandette had become FB friends a few months ago – having known of each other’s existence because of me – and I thought Minx might want to know that Dandette is not a safe person to be friends with. Also, I thought Minx and I were good friends and I was looking for her support through this trying time.

Minx has not responded. She goes through long periods of being a hermit so I figured this was one of those. Although I was disappointed she didn’t rise to the occasion to at least say “Oh, that sucks, I hope you’re okay” or something.

But today at dinner The Dandy said that Dandette texted him today – saying that Minx had repeated to her everything I’d said and “Well, now I know why Cowgirl hates me.” (Dandette has been either pretending not to understand what-all she’s done, or she repressed it.)

WHAT THE FUCK.

Minx, if you’ll recall, was the person who told me that a guy I’d just started hanging out with had raped and abused his ex. Minx asked me not to tell anyone that she was my source of info on that, so I didn’t. I simply told the guy I’d heard he was a rapist and I didn’t want to be in contact with him anymore. And now that the shoe is on the other foot, Minx is doing…this.

I’m so angry right now.

Big drama.

I don’t usually do trigger warnings here but this whole post is centred really really hard around r*pe and you wouldn’t specifically know it from the title so beware.

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Context to this post: I have recently learned that The Dandy and Dandette broke up the first time not (probably) because of fundamental personality differences, but because a guy raped Dandette at some kind of nerdy-thing convention – and incidentally this happened pretty soon after The Dandy had his heart bypass surgery – and the general stress of these big life events happening in a short span pretty much broke the relationship. I mean, Dandette literally woke up with this guy’s dick inside her so she developed trust issues and PTSD and stuff. Maybe it made her hate men for a while? I don’t know but she’s actually the one who broke things off.

So anyway. Dandette ran out of anxiety meds and isn’t able to get more for a little while, so she’s been having panic attacks. The other day she had one while we were out running errands, so we immediately started walking home again. Eventually, in addition to the panicky breathing and stuff, she started whimpering with every step and she told me that she hadn’t expected to be walking so much so she’d just thrown on her sandals – but her ankles are shitty and generally need more support than that so now walking was agony.

Later, when The Dandy and I were alone, I told him about this and asked if Dandette had a pattern of being self-defeating (it was a suspicion I had). I mean, the mall we were going to was a couple of blocks away, and Dandette herself suggested we make some unplanned detours while we were out. If she knew that the sandals would quickly make walking painful, why would she wear them for errands where we would probably be walking a bunch? Does she do things like that a lot?

The Dandy said that she does. I asked for an example and he said “Like getting drunk at a con and not wanting to leave when I left, so she stayed and ended up crashing in a room with a guy she didn’t really know.”

WHAT. “…Is that when she got raped?” I asked, carefully. The Dandy confirmed that it was. “Wow. That’s some victim-blaming bullshit.”

The Dandy objected and said he didn’t blame her for the rape.

“But dude,” I said, “I was asking about situations where a person does a thing with a predictable end result and then seems blindsided by that result. Do you see how ‘she wore shoes that hurt her feet and then was shocked that her feet hurt’ is different from ‘she stayed overnight somewhere and a guy decided to rape her’?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you, though? Do you get that Dandette didn’t get raped because she got drunk or because she stayed out or because she slept in the same room as a guy she didn’t know well, but because a guy was around who decided to rape her? Like, if there hadn’t been a rapist around, she wouldn’t have gotten raped. She could have passed out drunk in a room with a thousand guys and if none of them was the kind of guy who thought it was okay to stick his dick in a sleeping person, no rape would have occurred. Her rapist is responsible for that happening to her. Nobody else.”

The Dandy kept claiming he understood, and maybe he did now that I called him out, but judging by how the topic even came up, I’m gonna guess The Dandy’s been blaming her for her own rape all these years. And I can’t help wondering if he didn’t hide that very well and that’s why they broke up.

And I felt a wave of dread wash over me because I live with this man now – I’ve thrown my lot in with his, and in fact it’s doubtful I could find or afford a place of my own again right now even if I wanted to. The Dandy plays a key part in my survival at this point so I want the relationship to work out…and he’s just revealed himself to be a victim blamer. Is that what I have to look forward to? Him saying “Welllllll in fairness you did do X and Y” if (god forbid) I get raped or sexually assaulted again?

So that put me in a funk for the rest of the evening. It also brought my mind back to the various sketchy shit that’s happened to me in the past, and I told The Dandy a bunch of those stories, not in any kind of hectoring “So how you gonna blame that one on me, huh? Huh?” way – not to make a point at all – but just riffing. He listened and seemed supportive – no playing “Devil’s advocate” or any of that shit – so that’s something.

Unrelated: the next day, Minx texted me that the hot 22yo poly boy I’ve been so enamoured with raped a friend of hers multiple times, and some other people, too. And yeah, at first I did the typical mental gymnastics of “No, that guy is awesome, he can’t have done this” but ultimately I know that it’s exactly those instinctive mental gymnastics that make it really unlikely that a person is lying about that sort of thing – that particular accusation is way more likely to make people disbelieve and ostracize the one saying it than to actually get anyone to think badly of the accused, and every adult woman knows this. So basically I figure he did do these things. And I was slated to hang out with him that night.

Now, people do have facets. Maybe this boy really was awesome – toward me. Maybe he’d never break my boundaries, just like how serial killers sometimes have wives and families even as they kill other people. But I don’t want to take the risk and frankly I don’t want to give my time and attention to someone who’d abuse anyone. I can’t bear to think that a guy I’m wooing is someone else’s I-can’t-even-see-a-photo-of-him-without-being-triggered person.

I called The Dandy (this whole revelation about the boy happened at my art gallery job) and told him how the boy I liked has apparently raped people and I’d better probably cancel my outing with him that night.

And The Dandy replied “Well, you haven’t heard his side of it yet.”

I called him out on his hypocrisy immediately. “Wait, okay, so if Dandette sleeps in the same room as a guy she’s never heard any sketchy stories about but he rapes her, that’s her fault for trusting him, but if I hear that a guy I know has actually raped people and I decide I’d maybe better not hang out with him, I’m not giving him a fair shot? What the fuck!?!? And you do realize most people don’t lie about these things because they know everyone’s gonna say exactly what you just did, right? If someone tells me that a guy is rapey, I’m inclined to believe them.”

I can’t remember what The Dandy said. Probably nothing much; he freezes when I’m angry. I had to get back to work anyway so I ended the call.

I did cancel my outing with the boy, citing tiredness. I wasn’t ready to confront him about what I’d heard. He kept texting me hellos and whatnot that I ignored, though, and finally the next day he texted me like “Sorry, I don’t wanna be ‘that guy,’ but longer-than-average radio silence makes me antsy. Is everything okay?” Well fine then. I told him that a trusted source says he raped a friend of hers, repeatedly, and I kinda need to back off and process this info. I did not ask for “his side” – what’s the point? Ask a rapist and a non-rapist if they ever raped anyone and they’re both gonna say no. Although Minx did say that this boy takes a different tack; he admits to it, but says he’s reformed. He also, oddly, tries to play the victim card by claiming he has PTSD from being called out on his actions back then. WTF.

But as I said I didn’t ask for an explanation or justification. I simply said I needed silence so I could think. I figured it would be interesting to see if he respected that boundary or not. To my mind, in a situation like this where one person asks for space, the other person gets leeway for one more text message but then they’d better shut up. The boy sent me two messages rapid-fire but nothing since, so in that respect he’s okay.

In those two messages, though, he said exactly what Minx predicted. Here’s the second one, with commentary by yours truly (commentary from inside my head; I didn’t respond to the message at all).

I’ve worked really hard not to be that person. All of my partners know. I try to tell all of my friends and be hyper aware of myself and my privilege.

Minx said that this boy pretends to be a feminist in order to get in people’s pants. He certainly has the lingo down.

The person they were talking about was my first long-term sexual relation and I didn’t know how to act or how to be.

“Wait so I’m not supposed to slam my partner against the wall and choke them? God, how is anyone supposed to keep track of all these rules?”

Because yeah, that was in Minx’s report. The choking was in front of one of the victim’s friends, so not part of any of the rapes from what I can gather. The rapes I think were more coercion, and to be fair I think sometimes a person can be coercive or emotionally blackmailing without consciously realizing it, and rape culture makes it seem normal. So I can kinda see how a young person in their first relationship might be rapey because they don’t know any better (doesn’t make it okay, just makes it a thing that happens). But choking someone in front of their friend is pretty textbook abuse and I think it’s ludicrous for him to be like “Oh, I was new to relationships, I didn’t know how to act.” Of course, he probably doesn’t realize I know those details.

This doesn’t excuse what I did but I hope it gives some explanation.

I guess…

I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I tell people eventually. This person accusing me of this has given me PTSD and I’ve worked really hard to never do anything like it again.

This, right here, cements that this boy is an utter piece of shit. I’m sorry, Princess, did it hurt your feelings when someone called you out about rapes you did in fact commit? That must have been so difficult for you. Sadface.

And what does it mean to have PTSD from someone pointing out that he was an abusive rapist? Does he have flashbacks, go into a fugue state, and have to rock back and forth in the corner every time a perp gets arrested on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit? Like…no. NOPE. I call bullshit on this. Feeling uncomfortable at realizing you did something awful to someone isn’t PTSD, for fuck’s sake. But even if he did somehow legit have PTSD from being an abusive rapist, that’s entirely his own fault and not a thing he should ever try to leverage for sympathy. It’d be like telling people your knuckles always hurt when it’s about to rain because you busted your fist all up once while punching a puppy in the face, and expecting people to go “awwww, poor you!” Nope: fuck off.

Also, wtf is with him using the word “accused”? That doesn’t seem like a word you use for something you acknowledge that you did.

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you and if I didn’t ever get to talk to you again I’d be really sad about that. Sorry if that was allot[sic]. I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t at least try and give my side.

Yeah no this is not about “feeling right,” it’s about trying to feel better about himself – and making himself look good (insofar as that’s possible) so I might still fuck him one day. I heard he’s a rapist and in fact that is correct. He admitted this.

So, I guess things with him are done now.

Good news, though – the last time I talked to The Dandy about any of this he’d apparently realized that yeah, everyone always says “butbutbut they’re so nice/let’s not be hasty/let’s hear their side/oh they can’t have done a horrible thing like that” when someone says a person raped or abused them, ergo most people don’t even bother mentioning it because they’ll just be ostracized for making crazy allegations against such a great person, ergo when someone does say it, it’s more than likely true. I think he gets it now, or at least he’s starting to.

There’s still another small piece of drama that came out of this, though. When Minx was texting me about the boy, she showed all this disdain for the idea that he called himself “reformed.” Not in the sense that she felt he must be lying. She seemed to think that if someone commits rape they must be an irredeemably terrible person, so there’s no such thing as being reformed.

And I’m thinking “does Minx not remember that she raped and sexually assaulted me when we were together, or…?”  I guess not, or else she doesn’t use those words for what happened (which in fairness I didn’t, either, for a long time; the words imply intent to harm to most people, even though the technical definitions don’t mention intent). At any rate, her holier-than-thou attitude and false-dichotomy type of thinking (like there are people who are nice and there are monsters who give unwanted sexual touching and they are two groups with no crossover) was bugging me so I texted her that while I don’t believe this particular boy is necessarily “reformed,” I do believe it’s possible for a person to do a bad thing and then realize it was bad and not want to do it again; after all, she raped and sexually assaulted me when we were together and I still choose to be friends with her. I know she’s not a terrible person.

Minx did not respond to this. At all. Although when I told her about my exchange with the boy the next day, she did engage with me about that, so I guess she’s not angry and freezing me out for calling the previous incidents with her what they were. She just doesn’t know what to say about it, I suppose.

Reversal

It’s been said that women are taught they have intrinsic value until/unless they fuck it up (like by being a slut, for instance) whereas men are taught that they have to earn their value through the things they do.

In a weird way it feels like my sex life is the other way around.

When Minx and I were dating, I was blatantly and carnally obsessed with how pretty she was. I objectified her all the time; I took sexy pics of her; I ogled her and told her she looked amazing. But she just didn’t seem as visually oriented as I am*. I mean I know she found me attractive but for the most part I think my biggest draw in the relationship – more than anything to do with my body or intellect – was that I made her feel pretty.

 

Same thing with The Bunny, pretty much. I mean he did have some skills that I really appreciated, of both the kitchen and bedroom variety, but mostly I was just completely stupefied by how hot he was. He did not usually gush about me the way I did about him. And in fact when he kept having erectile issues with me and I asked him for compliments so I’d feel desirable in spite of his flagging boner, his praise was all about how good I am in bed; nothing about me being attractive, which was actually what I needed to hear. Seems as though I was not desirable to him in and of myself, like, just standing there. I was desirable because of what I could do for him.

And now The Pedant. After our orgasm argument the other day, I asked him “Tell me more things you like about our sexual encounters.” The next day, when he still hadn’t answered yet, I amended “…Or rather, things you like about my pleasure and responses, as they are right now.” Because I had a feeling if left to his own devices he would talk all about what I do for him rather than how I am. And given the nature of our little fight, what I really wanted to hear was that my pleasure and orgasms appeal to him in some way. Not the orgasms he wants me to have but the ones I actually do.

I’m glad he told me that emotional-talk gums up his internal workings and makes him unable to make small talk; my request to hear about how appealing my orgasms are happened on June 6th and he was absolutely silent** – ignoring both the question and several attempts at conversation – until June 14th, when he said:

“To answer your previous question about our sexual encounters, I really enjoy your enthusiasm and the fact that you enjoy being the dominant partner. I really enjoy that you’re not merely willing to run your hands over me for hours at a time, but that you actually enjoy doing so and are quite frank about that.”

Yeah. I guess he missed where I revised my question. These are still nice things to hear, but…y’know.

So I prompted again, “Tell me what you like about my orgasms.”

“How uninhibited they are,” he said. Which I can’t quite reconcile with the fact that he usually asks me whether or not I’ve had one.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong, I like feeling active and skilled in bed; like a subject instead of an object. I don’t want to feel purely ornamental. But I might like to feel a little more “passively desirable” than I typically do. To feel, every now and then, that someone is getting off on touching me because I’m hot and my reactions are fun. I’d like to feel admired for how I give and receive pleasure.

 

I genuinely had no idea that The Pedant even cared about getting me off until fairly recently, when I hit him up for sex but he was too spent from before so I had him get me off…and afterward he was suddenly totally receptive to fucking. And I noticed this pattern several more times after that. So he does get turned on by my orgasms (as they exist right now, not just the imaginary ones he wants me to have with effortless abandon just from his magical penis). He just doesn’t tell me this in words.

 

*With anyone, not just me. I never saw her ogle hot people the way I do, and when the movie Black Swan came out I was all “We have to see it! Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have some sort of love scene!!!!” and Minx went along with this easily enough but did not seem to share my enthusiasm no matter how many times I repeated “Natalie Portman! And Mila Kunis!!!!”

**Silent except for the phone call I requested and the handful of logistical texts surrounding it. Unsure if that sort of thing is typically exempt from his emotional brain-freezes or if he made an effort to rise to the occasion…

Closure

Minx ended up coming over about two hours before The Pedant did; she’s moving this weekend and found an item of mine in her apartment plus some things of hers she wanted to give me, so she was dropping the items off. She came up for a bit and sat on my couch with me so we could do some catching up. She affectionately ran her fingers over the shaved part of my head and with my touch deprivation/stress response being ratcheted up to critical levels this made me immediately burst into tears and collapse into her lap.

I sobbed into her thighs for a while and she kept petting me. This was the release I’d been hoping to get from The Pedant. Ironic that Minx ended up stealing his thunder. Minx is really good about comforting me when I’m anxious or stressed out, now that we’re not dating. 😛 I talked about the stressors in my life and she talked about hers and it was good.

Also, huge groundbreaking thing here, she said that while packing her things to move, she got to thinking about her last move – which was when she moved out of here. Then she got all choked up and told me she wanted to apologize for the way she left.

I’m blown away by this. Minx has done some really hurtful things to me without ever seeming to realize they were hurtful. Like to a point where I wondered if she might be a bit of a sociopath and I began to be a bit scared of her.

Back in the day, she told her parents she was going to move out before she told me. Well, not just told her parents but burst into tears when they asked her how things were going with me, then sobbed she needed to move out ASAP and asked if they would help. Like, if they would help soon, and secretly. Like I was some kind of abusive monster she had to escape from. She did end up deigning to tell me of her decision a few days later, though – at which time I was like “NOPE, you’re not moving out within the next few days, give me two months’ notice like a tenant is legally supposed to. I need the time to figure out how to cover your part of the rent once you’re gone.”

So she granted me the two months, but then – despite her previous vehemence that she needed to go – she barely looked for a place. It was very much beginning to look like she might just…kinda…stay living with me and pretend she’d never had a huge outburst to her parents and then to me about how she couldn’t stand me anymore. I had to sit her down and tell her in no uncertain terms that her ass had to be gone when those two months were up, whether she found a place or not.

Then she found a place at pretty much the last second, but she hadn’t packed, either, so moving day comprised her and her parents moving all her furniture to the new place while I packed her books, movies, etc. for her. And me hiding from her parents when they were in here hauling stuff, because god knows what they thought about me after Minx’s little outburst.

At the time, I brought up the whole “You told your parents you were breaking up with me before you told me” debacle to Minx many, many times, trying to impress upon her how absolutely shitty that was, and she just looked at me quizzically. Now it seems she’s finally figured it out. Or maybe she was only apologizing for making me pack for her. I kind of wanted to ask what exactly she felt sorry about but I decided not to push my luck.

Postscript

I often have a hard time coming, with The Pedant. In the sense that I find myself wondering what he’s thinking/if he’s even into this/etc., and it throws me off. I try to shut my thoughts up and tell myself not to worry about it and I do come, eventually.

Ever since we established that I’m the boss of him in bed, I’ve been combating those “but what if he’s not enjoying getting me off?” worries with “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT HE THINKS OR FEELS. He’s a fucktoy whose purpose is to please you however you want.” And I come pretty much immediately. Not sure if it’s because objectifying him turns me on, or if I’m simply reassured by our D/s dynamic (as in, maybe he isn’t like “wheeeee!” every single minute that he’s finger-fucking me or whatever, but he essentially agreed to sex me any time I demanded it so he must at least be enjoying this in a meta way).

Also, though, he’s kind of an odd duck in that when he’s pleasuring me he never makes eye contact or even looks at my face. Usually he rests his head on my stomach. Which in some ways makes me feel less self-conscious than staring at me would (’cause he’s not seeing my goofy O-face or sitting there trying to analyze how close I am by my expression) and in some ways makes me feel more self-conscious (is he even in this with me? I feel like I’m being administered to, like a very weird doctor’s examination or something…).

I think/hope that this is just because he puts himself under a lot of performance pressure and maybe needs to focus on what his hands are doing so as not to fuck up his rhythm. Truth be told, I too sometimes have to stare at my own hands giving a hand job because glancing up and seeing my partner getting close – his face flushing, his neck muscles tensing, his eyes rolling back – will make me go “Oh god I’d better make sure I keep a steady rhythm so I don’t throw him off but oh shit I have completely forgotten what I’m doing it’s like my hands belong to someone else what even is this.”

For the record, I usually have a slightly easier time orgasming with people who are not The Pedant. Which makes me wonder whether my libido/sexual functioning issues are psychological rather than physiological. Certainly my sexless marriage, rapidly-more-sexless-toward-the-end-there relationships with Minx and The Bunny, and initially super argumentative, “stop-telling-me-how-my-body-works-dammit,” “why is our orgasm ratio so imbalanced” relationship with The Pedant have affected me. I mean I’m still trying to get over some of the scars.

But my marriage was the most hurtful time of my life as far as feeling undesirable goes and I still managed to be a walking clitoral erection during that entire time (even though I stopped masturbating because it felt like I was pity-fucking myself and just made me depressed). So I can’t help thinking that my issues now are physical.

If it is a psychological thing I don’t know how the hell to fix it. There is no logical reason why issues with a partner should affect my libido or orgasms when I’m alone. If I’m actively angry at a partner then yes, I have a hard time masturbating to orgasm because my default wank fantasies are always about whoever I’m seeing and if I’m mad at them I can’t really get off to them. But I’m not angry with The Pedant. Our sex life is getting better and better, and when I masturbate I think about him pretty much every time.

And yet a) I never get erections anymore (which explains why I need major vibration and pressure now in order to orgasm – I’m flogging a limp clit) and b) the sexy thoughts in my brain are no longer hooked up to my crotch (hence the erectile dysfunction, I guess). I’m never tingly and horny and needing to orgasm, anymore. I’m vaguely titillated and having sex thoughts so I decide to orgasm, to prove to myself that I still can.

I’ve also been having this thing for the past few years where I can’t/don’t enjoy wallowing in kinky fantasies anymore. And it’s kind of a chicken/egg situation – am I not fantasizing because my libido is messed up, or am I stopping myself from fantasizing about kinky stuff and this in turn squashes my libido down (since kink comprises the majority of my sex drive, anyway).

Like, I’ll try to daydream about the kinds of violent, sadistic things that used to turn my crank, and my brain immediately says “nope” and changes the subject, and I don’t know if this is some belated weird guilt reflex over the sicko things I find appealing or if there’s a physical ailment killing my boner so my mind just wanders because there’s nothing keeping it on kink.

I have a doctor appointment this week though and hopefully I’ll start getting some answers, or possible avenues to answers.

 

Ambiguity

Hung out with The Bunny recently. I decided that I need photos of me striking some of the poses I do at work, in order to market myself to new people or prove to existing people that I deserve a raise. Not naked pics, though – shorts and a sports bra. Nudity is for when I’m actually being paid. 😛 The Bunny agreed to take said photos.

Once I got there and thawed a bit (I had accidentally dressed far too lightly for the weather) I headed to the bathroom to change and The Bunny was like “Pfft. Where you going?” as in, why be so formal when he’s seen me naked anyway? I was in fact fine with changing in front of him and had only been leaving the room in case he felt uncomfortable, so I shrugged, pulled my dress off over my head right there in his bedroom, and turned my back to swap the push-up bra I was wearing for the sports bra I’d brought with me.

Pics were taken and then The Bunny shaved his head (he’d had me bring my head-shaver just in case but he ended up not needing it). He lets his hair grow all winter and then shaves it around springtime and I guess he decided that day was the day. He took his shirt off for this, and had me help get some bits that he missed. Since the photo-taking was over and I didn’t want to seem like I was being gratuitously scantily clad at him, I endeavoured to change back into my regular clothes; however, there was a big wet spot on the ribcage area of my dress (no idea why) and it felt so icky that I couldn’t deal with it. I draped the dress over his space heater and we conducted our haircutting business with him in just jeans and me in my shorts and push-up bra. At one point he asked me if the bra was new; I told him yeah, but I think I bought the wrong size by accident. He reached out and honked my boob (although the bra is so padded that he might as well have squeezed a pillow) and said that it looked good anyway.

When I was helping him shave the back of his neck I realized that I was resting my free hand on his upper back (god, his skin is so smooth and warm) and I removed it. Though I don’t get the feeling he was uncomfortable with it.

But I wanted to touch him some more. And I wanted him to touch me. My interest was not outright sexual, and it wasn’t so strong that it bothered me or anything. Just a little tickle in the pit of my stomach. But it was there. And I can’t quite tell if it’s mutual. I mean, inviting me to change in front of him and touching my so-padded-I-felt-nothing boob would seem to be hints that he’d be okay with…something. But I won’t ask him outright or make any definitive moves because I’ve already been rejected quite enough by him, thank you very much*. I’m in no mood to risk being shot down again. And I know he’s not the type to make a move unless the other person blatantly tells him it’s okay, so I guess things will just have to stay as they are.

A day or two after I hung out with The Bunny, Minx invited me to see the movie Deadpool (which was awesome, btw). This was free for me because she works at a movie theatre and gets a certain number of free passes per month as an employee perk.

During the movie she started stroking my wrist, which felt so good that I immediately rolled my sleeve up to allow access to more skin. And after a while of that she just held my hand. We haven’t been hand-holders since we broke up but I accepted it as a gesture of mostly-platonic affection and indeed that’s what it seemed to be. She did not escalate to other, more dating-ish-type things. We just sat there watching the movie and holding hands like a couple who’s been married a hundred years and doesn’t have sex anymore.

Then we went back to my place and watched Netflix and ate dinner and she massaged my feet for a nice long time. Also my neck, and I wonder whether that led to my painful neck spasms the next day, but that’s neither here nor there.

It’s so weird to me now that I was ever in love with Minx; that I ever lived with her. She’s still dear to my heart and I enjoy seeing her from time to time but honestly her presence starts to grate on me like a motherfucker after a few hours. Mostly because of how long it takes her to formulate a coherent sentence (and to think she once accused me of having way too much “filler” when I talk.). Hanging out and watching stuff and snuggling is great, but when things get too talk-intensive I get an increasing urge to yell “OH MY GOD JUST SPIT IT OUT” and it’s just…difficult. So basically I’m always glad to see her but also glad when she leaves. Best of both worlds. 😛

Last night Mine came over (technically he has not been mine for a bunch of months now, but for the sake of continuity his nickname shall remain). At the time that I invited him over I was feeling toppy and wanted someone to inflict super rough sex on. But his actual visit was like two weeks later and the urge had subsided by then. Also I have complicated feelings about him. At one time, we were falling in love. And then suddenly we weren’t and to this day I’m not sure why things fizzled. Without the “love goggles” I’m less attracted to him than I was, plus his presence makes me feel sad for what might have been; hanging out with him is such a pale shadow of what it used to be.

And also he’s taken up smoking again and the stink was clinging to him when he first came in (the cold weather makes it do that, somehow). So when he first got here I didn’t even kiss him hello. I was pleased to see him and when we sat on my couch to catch up we tangled our legs all up in companionable snuggles immediately, but I felt no carnal urge. I threw on a movie and while it played I had a silent debate with myself. I knew that if I started something sexual up, I’d probably end up enjoying it, if only because I can sort of hyper focus and make myself enjoy things. But isn’t it best to hold out for sexual encounters that make me feel enthusiastic and passionate from the getgo? Was I only thinking of doing stuff with Mine because it was the path of least resistance (I’d invited him over expressly to “slap all the pretty off his face” so he would be kind of expecting something more than just movies…)?

The movie ended and I put on another one. I found myself super tired, though. Mine was, too, and asked if I’d mind very much if he went and lay down for a bit. I said I was sleepy too so we might as well both go. Once we got in bed, though, Mine said that he has a Pavlovian reaction to being in my bed: he gets hard. And he began to kiss me. Meh, what the hell. I went ahead and kissed him back, which eventually turned into me doing ouchy things to him and then fucking his ass with one of my biggest dildos while he jerked off. It was pretty fun, but it was missing the quality of D/s that I craved and this gave it an edge of sadness, to me. Because I used to dominate this boy and now I pretty much just service top him. It felt fun but a bit hollow. Le sigh.

There’s another boy – someone I’ve canoodled with a time or two at play parties and whom I finally invited over a few weeks back. The conundrum with him is that I don’t find his face particularly attractive, His body is amazing and he is sweet and a fantastic conversationalist – when he slept over we were up all night after the sexual shenanigans just talking. But I am not as attracted to him as I’d like to be, which made the sexual stuff feel once again more like a service I was performing. Mind you, he reciprocated. I fell asleep with him petting his ass (by my request) in fact. So it’s not like I got nothing out of the deal.

I rather thought that this boys’ visit would end up being a one-off, or at least that we were pretty casual, but he’s been texting me semi-regularly ever since (prior to that we mostly communicated via FetLife messages). I think he sees us as more of an official Thing than I did. I am willing to entertain the idea, because I do enjoy his company and I like having people I can have snugglepets with. And it’s not like I was unaroused during the sexytimes. We’ll see how that goes.

 

*For those of you just joining us, I dated The Bunny for about a year and for a big chunk of that he was never in the mood for sex or BDSM play (and instead of telling me so upfront like a grown-up he’d wait for me to actually start doing foreplay-type things and then snarkily ask “can I help you?” or some shit like that). And then later he developed erectile dysfunction with me and only me. And all this time, while claiming that he just wasn’t in the mood for sex and BDSM, he continued getting beaten at play parties, dating other people, putting up ads to meet new partners, etc. Soooooo yeah.

 

 

Sigh.

I’ve felt for a while now that things between Mine and I are falling apart. Or maybe it’s just the relationship settling into that comfy place, but I don’t think so. We haven’t logged nearly enough time together for that – we’ve technically been dating for almost a year now but he lives in a different city and works all the time so I would guess that we’ve seen each other less than ten times altogether.

But yeah…he doesn’t send me gushing texts about how much he loves me anymore, and frankly I don’t have an urge to send any to him, either. The spark doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Last time he was here we both totally forgot to do our ritual of him taking my shoes off for me when I got home. I only realized this later, after he was gone.

I still enjoy being with him. Maybe we mistook solid D/s compatibility for falling in love, and now the relationship has settled into more of a FWB type thing. I like FWBs. But I miss the thrill of falling for someone and if I felt that for this boy before, then maybe I can get it back again instead of starting from scratch with someone else.

I’ve just texted him, airing these feelings a bit. I’m kinda hoping that even just the act of me telling him how I feel will trigger honest talk from him in return and we’ll end up feeling closer as a result. That’s how it worked with Minx and I, sometimes.

Hmmm. Mine has texted me back now, saying he feels the same way (distant but not wanting to be). He says he’s been going through a stressful time lately but that’s coming to a close – implying that it’s the stress that’s been fucking with things – but I’m not sure that’s true, honestly. I mean it accounts for him not seeing me for a really long time – he got evicted and has been scrambling to find a new place – but when you feel heart-explody love for someone I don’t think it’s common for that to just shut off due to stress. He goes days at a time without contacting me at all lately, and when he does it’s never mushy anymore. I feel like something is afoot.

Or maybe he is a person who can’t spare any mushy stuff for someone else when he’s got a lot going on in his life. Maybe that is indeed a thing. Who the hell knows. But the thing is…I’m not like that, and I’m feeling kind of not-in-love-with-him, too (I haven’t been noticing his long silences, particularly! Just every now and then I’ll be like “Hey, I wonder how Mine’s been doing? When did he even text me last? Feels like it’s been a while” and I check my phone and it’s been three days. When The Pedant and I were seeing each other I missed him during his silences…). It just doesn’t seem to bode very well. On my end it may be that I got burned out by never knowing when I would see Mine next. The Pedant (and, oddly, my ex-husband, even though we lived together) already gave me enough of that whole runaround, and although Mine’s reasons were legit (he wasn’t just fucking with me) and he did a good job of still making me feel loved when he couldn’t be here (until everything started to fall to shit), I just…I just don’t know if I can get emotionally invested in someone with an unreliable schedule.

And actually I’m also beginning to feel as though we have different priorities and that’s a big issue, too. Specifically, I mean that my relationships tend to take priority for me over work. I’ll work enough to support myself but beyond that, I’ll make time for my partners and friends. I mean I won’t cancel a gig to go hang out with someone but I’ve turned down offers of work if I already had social plans.

Mine…won’t do that for me. He, too, does freelance work (handyman, in his case) and gets last-minute job offers…and he simply will not ever reserve time for me the way I will for him (I voiced my annoyance over this imbalance a while back and he made me promise never again to turn down work for him, which was a good idea and made me feel less taken advantage of but doesn’t solve the fundamental problem of never knowing when I’m actually going to see him).

And for a while, I was okay with him having to work all the time. Dude has to support himself, after all, and with the unpredictable nature of his job he’d best be trying to put aside savings to cover the lean times, too.

But.

His rent is only $500 a month and it turns out he’s also on disability (he’s bipolar), which gives him $1,000/month. He could probably just live on that and not even have to work at all (he doesn’t have a car, so no car payments or insurance; he doesn’t have a tv, so no cable bill; his phone is a decade-old flip phone, so no fancy phone with data plan…dude doesn’t have a lot of bills). But he’s working under the table in addition to getting that thousand a month – and working a lot. He is just fine financially (unless he’s really fucking things up, which he might be – more on that in a minute). But he still won’t ever guarantee me a specific chunk of time to hang out. It’s always “I can probably come over on Tuesday but I might have to work – I’ll let you know soon.” (Well in fairness he did reserve my birthday. He’s not a total dick. Just…different priorities, like I said.)

Now, here’s another interesting thing – he’s had a few times where he wanted to see me and wasn’t working but said he didn’t have the money to come over. So first off, he must be burning through crazy amounts of cash to end up so poor that he can’t afford the Greyhound (which is like $20, tops)(but in fairness I think he also expects to take me to dinner and stuff when he’s here so he probably wants to have a good chunk of cash on hand. I don’t ask for these dinners out, mind you. I like ’em but I don’t expect them. I just wanna spend time with him). But also? He once mentioned in passing that he has about $6,000 in savings. When he says he doesn’t have the money to see me, it doesn’t mean he literally has no money. It means he’s down to just his savings and he doesn’t want to dip into that. Which is his prerogative but, again…different priorities. If I were in his circumstances I’d spend the money to go see the one I was in love with and just be sure to replace it later once my next disability cheque or wad of cash from handyman stuff came in.

It’s a complicated issue. I like that he has boundaries. I like that he’s been able to save up a nest egg and has the discipline not to touch it. But on the other hand I don’t feel particularly loved or prioritized when the boy blows all his spending money on god-knows-what, leaving none for coming over to see me. Then he says it’s killing him being apart from me and it feels like a lie because OH HAI YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN YOUR ACCOUNT AND IT WOULD ONLY TAKE A TINY FRACTION OF THAT TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM.

One time, I asked him how it is that he regularly runs out of money-that-is-not-his-nest-egg when I know his rent takes up only like 25% of his income. He said that he’s paying off a huge credit card debt from a few years back when he wasn’t on bipolar meds yet and went on a huge manic shopping spree. Buuuuuut…I know that this is not the whole truth. Not that I think Mine is lying to me – I think he’s just one of nature’s extravagant spenders and doesn’t realize how much it all adds up. But like, the first time we met he paid for a cab from our meeting place to the play party because he didn’t wanna wait for the bus (which would have taken us right there and would have come within ten minutes, tops). He takes us out to dinner and often breakfast, too, when he’s here. He’ll offer to take me out to a movie but every single thing I mention an interest in, he’s already seen. Dude must be spending a hundred bucks a week just on going to movies.

And while I enjoy feeling like a high roller when I’m with Mine, his spending habits did kind of kill my onetime idea of moving in with him someday. He hasn’t ever overspent to the point of fucking up on rent as far as I know, but I’d be kind of worried that he would. The fact that he gets carried away going to movies and god knows what else to a point where he can’t come and see me, the person he’s allegedly in love with (when, by the way, he’s not allowed to orgasm unless he’s with me and he’s been backed up for weeks), doesn’t seem to bode well as far as priority-setting.

I just don’t know about this relationship anymore.

Creative obsession

One unexpected thing about this new foot porn endeavor of mine is that I wanna talk about it with people but I can’t. I’m a performer at heart (yeah, even with my social anxiety) with a creative mind and a flair for figuring out exactly how to hit someone’s fetish buttons, so I’ve been having terrific fun planning out what-all I’m gonna do in these clips and how I’m gonna do it. It’s consuming my whole brain right now. But I go to a gig and the instructor asks how I’m doing/what’s new and obviously I can’t be like “I’ve decided to film porn clips and I’m super excited!” so I’m just like “Oh, nothing much.” But the whole time I’m posing I’m obsessing on what nail polish I should wear for which clip idea and how to accomplish certain camera angles.

It’s too bad because my instructors are artists, too, and I bet if I started discussing this stuff with them, they’d totally get why I was so jazzed up about it (if the “porn” part of the equation didn’t put them off). But one does not discuss pornography at one’s non-porn job.

So I’m obsessed 24/7 about a thing I mostly can’t talk about. I haven’t felt this jittery and repressed since the time I worked in an office and people asked how my weekend went and I didn’t feel like I could tell them that Minx and I went to Pride and it was like this heavenly little bubble of non-rape-culture where we felt totally free to be our freaky selves and a cute guy in a tutu and combat boots asked to take our picture.

Going places

Preface: I just realized that my current boy, Mine, has a name just one letter off from my ex-partner’s, Minx. This post is about both of them. Read carefully or it’s gonna get confusing. Sorry for picking names that are so close together.

So, back when Minx was in the process of breaking up with me and spouted off a bunch of crazy, paranoid shit about me, it really threw me off my game. Which is to be expected – when the person who should know you better than anyone else says you’re dangerous and abusive, that’s no small thing. But I don’t think I realized just how much I internalized that idea.

Mine lets me play rougher than anyone else ever has. Last night I slapped his face; punched him as hard as I could; bit him; twisted his nipples until he was almost crying. And the vast majority of the time, he enjoyed it – but occasionally he needed to ask me to stop. And every time he said “owwww not quite so hard” or “not there, please” or “I need a break” or even tentatively put his hand up, I…stopped. Immediately and effortlessly, as though a switch had been flipped. I did not resent having to stop. I did not get so drunk on power that I decided to ignore his needs and just do whatever the fuck I wanted. I did not get so immersed in my own happy little sadistic world that I blocked out everything around me including Mine’s words and body language.

I caught myself marveling at the fact that I stopped instantly when asked to, and then I wondered why I should marvel at it because stopping when asked is just common sense, and then I realized it’s because Minx had made me feel like such a dangerous, unpredictable monster that I’d stopped trusting myself. I’d assumed that MInx must have seen something in me that even I wasn’t aware of. Certainly I’d always stopped immediately with her, but also we never played that rough. The rare times she did let me indulge my sadism a bit, I felt like something transformative was about to happen…but never quite got there. I think on some level I started thinking that the burgeoning thing i was feeling was some kind of Jekyll/Hyde werewolf deal, and that Minx sensed this and that’s why she’d always keep such a tight leash on things that I couldn’t quite get there. She knew I would turn into a horrible person and do horrible things. She knew I couldn’t be trusted to go too far.

Mine is teaching me that I’m capable of greater aggression than I’d ever realized, but I’m also a good and trustworthy person. He’s helping me heal a wound I’ve been carrying around for years and giving me more confidence in myself as a dominant. And I’m so, so grateful for that.

I wasn’t wrong about being on the edge of transformation before, mind you. When I’m allowed to let loose, I do wolf out. It’s just that my werewolf is not so much a killer as a golden retriever puppy let loose in a park for the first time – wiggly-happy and reveling in the sudden freedom, but not mean-spirited.

Mine says he’d like to get me to a point where I’m completely unguarded and unafraid and will do absolutely whatever I want to him without second-guessing myself (unless or until he says stop, obvs). I’m not sure that’s possible for me, but I love that he’s such a proactive submissive, communicating well and often and encouraging me to come out of my shell. I trust him more than I’ve ever trusted anyone who’s bottomed to me, and I’m beginning to finally trust myself, as well.

When I’m with him, the whole world seems to open up. This is what I’ve always wanted D/s to be: a journey you take together to brand new places. I always knew on some level that it could feel like this; it’s just that I’ve only experienced such brief, watered-down tastes of it that I’d started to think that other world was a myth or wishful thinking..

You can probably kinda see now why I’m falling in love with this boy.

OK SRSLY I’M GONNA SMACK SOMEONE.

So Minx was over the other night and I related the story of The Bunny assuming I’ve been having g-spot orgasms for no good reason, and how irritating that was. Minx had a good chuckle over that.

Then she asked “Was ‘fuck me, bitch’ a g-spot orgasm?”

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT. She asked this literally ten seconds after I said that I don’t come vaginally, and also we dated for three years and I reiterated that I only come from external clitoral stimulation every time she asked. Not to mention asking for, or giving myself, external clitoral stimulation any time I wanted to get off. Occasionally I wanted a couple of her fingers inside me to supplement the clitoral stuff, but I’ve never, ever asked for only finger penetration to get off. Because penetration alone won’t get me there. As I told her from the beginning.

And by the way, don’t you think that if – by some freak accident – I had an orgasm from penetration for the first time in thirty-odd years of getting off, I would probably say something? It’s a little presumptuous and weird for anyone to assume I’ve suddenly started climaxing in a brand new way and plumb forgot to mention it.

Penis-having people are pissing me right the fuck off lately.