November 3, 2009
I have so much to say here, and so very little time. Work has me running crazy, and something is causing me to feel profoundly exhausted.
So this is just a post to say I am still alive, despite whatever demons are feeding on me at night.
Painting by Randis Albion, via Sex in Art.
October 21, 2009
I was noodling around Amazon.com tonight, looking for some new books to read, when my eye fell on the “active discussion in related forums” list at the bottom of my page. (Seriously, I have no idea what this is. The internet has so many weird features these days that I can’t keep up. Who is using Amazon as a BBS, and why?)
Anyway, the title of the discussion was “Is spanking a lovable or harmful form of disipline?“, and according to the helpful statistics in the sidebar, during the half hour the discussion had been going on, it had garnered 6,000 replies. My goodness! I thought. First Amazon decides to sell sex toys, and the next thing you know, people are discussing Domestic Discipline on its forums. What next?! I clicked on the discussion to discover as-yet-unimagined pros and cons of spanking.
Um. More perceptive readers will probably have already guessed that the discussion was about whether or not to spank one’s children. (I probably didn’t pick up on that debate because I take it for granted that the answer is no–at least, not unless one’s children are on the verge of swallowing a gallon of poison as a practical “joke”.)
I’d be tempted to say that that’s all you can find about kink at what the New York Times has called “the world’s general store” . . . but it wouldn’t be true. You and I know better, don’t we?
Cartoon by the epically perverse Martin van Maele; work and other scant information here, here, here, and here.
October 19, 2009
Well, not everything. But when it comes to BDSM, I have to say the internet still rivals most other sources of information.
I was reading Ferns’s Domme Chronicles the other day when I noticed that she seemed to have an interesting new toy. She was posting pics of recent acquisitions, including these:
“Are those cutting boards?” I asked. And I asked her how she liked them.
“Yes, indeed!” she answered. “I am a delicate flower (no, truly) and a decent spanking hurts me more than it hurts him, so I like it quite a bit. It is more solid than a purpose-made paddle, and has the corresponding heavier impact for minimal effort.
“And I like it quite a bit–it is lovely quality, looks beautiful and has a very satisfying slap-thud. I’d say from the sounds that he makes when I use it that it might hurt just a little bit . . . “
All of this sounded excellent to me. I’m a fan of a satisfying slap-thud myself, and I made sure to draw the post to Robbie’s attention. Robbie is increasingly in charge of toy-and-costume acquisition, presumably because he does it better than I do, and possibly because if he does it, he can execute quality control. (Not that he’s into control.)
So I wasn’t entirely surprised when, last weekend, I walked into the room I use as my dressing room when I’m at his house and found, waiting for me, an assortment of new toys. They included:
- the new sharps kit (items from a medical supply store)
- a platinum wig (he says I’m going blonde for the gangbang he is certain I will one day agree to; apparently, he’s ready any time now)
- an unvarnished cutting board
He had gotten himself a cutting board too, as I found out the next day when he called me to his bedroom and had me assume the spankee position without offering me any explanation.
I got three medium-force thwaps. I was unsure whether they were punishment for something I’d done? (I’ve been ranting about my punishment cravings lately.) Or maybe they were foreplay? (He did show me, after the thwaps, that he had a fairly significant hard-on.) Or . . .??
“How was that?” he asked.
“Confusing,” I started. “I felt like . . . “
Robbie sighed. I have a tendency to scrutinize my own emotions intensely, in a way that can very occasionally frustrate him. “Let me clarify the question. How was that physical sensation?”
“Oh! It felt good. What was it?”
“The cutting board.”
“I like that. It’s really nice and thuddy.”
“Like a paddle, right?”
“Yeah, but a paddle has edges–I mean, that has edges too, but with a paddle you’re more likely to get the person with an edge, which stings. And with that you have a lot more area. Do you know what I mean?” I swear, my brain goes out the window as soon as it senses any pain or any rope.
“Yes,” Robbie said drily. “I know what you mean.”
So. I’m here to testify that Ferns’s Bread Board Paddle is a great toy. And also to show you mine . . . I hope you like it.
October 18, 2009
I couldn’t resist posting this (to me) hilarious snippet from ranat’s blog, beyond the hills. I think it perfectly captures the hall-of-mirrors transformations that can happen when you open yourself up to The World of Kink.
Her post starts with the realization that she’s has an internal vision of this certain man her whole life, and that the man is herself:
This blog began with that I’m dominant. I could finally admit that. And then that I’m a sadist. It was okay to say that too. Okay, then it became apparent I’m not straight. Oh, and by the way there is a man lurking in my head and he is me. What is this, fucking dominoes? Tip over one and eventually the rest will all fall down? I cannot even comprehend the artistry and subtlety of my self-repression to have so blithely hidden this all from myself for two decades.
I know what she means. On the other hand, sometimes I really, really like it when the dominoes fall.
Above: Invisible 2, by Tyson McAdoo.
October 17, 2009
No needle play for us, after all, last weekend. The friends we invited over for dinner have a newborn–the baby is a month old–and barely have time for kink with each other, much less for kink with friends. I’m not quite sure what we were thinking about the needle demonstration, but we had a lovely time with our friends, watching them enjoy their new arrival.
These friends have been with us through major thick and thin–with Robbie, especially, since they are closer to him than to me. I think I’m ready to start writing about that thick and thin, about what some of the fights of the last year(s?) have been about. It’s not pretty stuff, the past. But what’s come out of it is better and better.
“Eyes of True“, from Odilia Luzzi’s lovely photoblog, Dreams of Light.
October 8, 2009
I am headed to see Robbie this weekend and very eager to be there. My sex drive has returned at at least half-strength, if not more, and I have an urgent need to be with him. Plus, we have at least a few wicked plans. I say we, but Robbie seems to be doing most of the planning. I’m hugely relieved at this. For past visits Robbie has planned an elaborate schedule of activities, and I panic at the thought of getting it all done as well as worry about how it will go. This time, he gets to enjoy all the anticipation of things that “I know but you don’t know” (as he likes to sing in a little song he’s made up), but I don’t have to stress about any of them. It’s as it should be–him in control, me in the dark.
Well, I’m not in the dark about everything.
When we were first getting into BDSM and Robbie and I filled out the requisite checklists about perversions, it turned out that I had a real fascination with needles, knives, and play piercings. Robbie was extremely cautious about all of these desires; he was happy to hurt me, but very reluctant to injure me, if the distinction makes any sense. Part of the reluctance stemmed, I think, from some professional medical experience in his past. But the hearty doctor fetish I have made the whole idea frustratingly hotter.
And here we are, three years down the line, and he’s finally studied up on needle play, asking a very experienced friend of ours for instruction, advice, recommendation on equipment, and an actual demonstration. We’re having dinner with our friend and his girl this Sunday night. I’m at once over the moon and terrified.
It so happens that I sliced my hand open by (accidentally) putting it through a glass window pane this summer. (I tripped on someone’s inconveniently-placed roller skates in the dark, and the rest was pure Marx brothers.) The masochist in me was pretty thrilled at the resultant blood and the pain, while the rationalist in me said: “You dumb retarded twit, you can’t like it, or people will think it’s self-inflicted!” Fortunately, the obviously treacherous position of the roller skates exculpated me from charges of self-harm–or so I hope.
But I digress. My point is that the thing felt deliciously painful until I got to the hospital, where I was scheduled to have a few stitches. I even remember lying there with my hand elevated, watching the nurse prepare the saline solution, various bandages, the local anaesthetic, and thinking, “Cool! This is the nearest I’m going to get to needle play for awhile!”
And dammit if it didn’t hurt like a mother. There was none of the euphoric pain that had come from the slicing cut to my hand. There was a really nasty pinchy stab, multiplied by about a thousand. Stingy bitterness.
So, we’ll see on Sunday. I very much like the thought of being the useful experimental pincushion for Robbie and our friends. I just hope that the experience is a happy one for all involved, and that the pain is the flying-high kind rather than the hop-on-one-foot-and-swear-a-blue-streak kind.
I’ll try to report back, depending on the scale of my injuries.
High-fashion pics by Philippe Kerlo.
October 4, 2009
I just got this email from a friend of mine, who is most assuredly grown up. It read:
The doorbell rang. Three little boys were there. One said they were starting a friendship club and wanted to know if I wanted to join. The other asked if there were any little people in the house. “Kids?” I asked. “Yeah.” The first boy repeated the invitation to join their friendship club. I asked what I had to do. “Nothing,” he said. I asked if I had to play with them. “No, we are just going around to the houses seeing if people want to join our friendship club.” “Sure, ” I said. I’m going put it on my resume.
What I want to know is why people don’t do this more often. Any of you want to be in my friendship club?? We have cookies.
October 2, 2009
[Hi. I missed you too.]
The other night Robbie emailed me to tell me that for my next visit, I should plan to bring–sorry, I was required to bring–white cotton schoolgirl panties and hair ribbons. (“Colors (in priority in case they cost too much to buy all at once): pink, white, red, black and green.” He is nothing if not precise.)
The requirement that I provide things for Robbie’s increasing interest in costumes (one that I share) was super-hot to me. The prospect of trying to find ribbons in my new and urban environment, on the other hand, was surprisingly daunting and inspired a fit of hysteria out of all proportion to the task. (As I’ve noted before, tasks, no matter how small they are, really don’t seem to work well for us at distance; I go into insta-meltdown, and he ends up wondering why something intended to be sexy and fun turns into emotional crisis.)
I still don’t know where I’ll get the ribbon, since I’m thinking that the corner Starbucks and 24-hour CVS, my go-to sources for all that is essential, won’t be of use. But I’m determined to try to find something for whatever nefarious purposes Robbie has in mind. I have every intention of being the most irresistible schoolgirl he’s seen in some time. And I’m hoping if I’m good enough, he might even use a few of the ribbons elsewhere on me (wrists, ankles . . . ).
August 20, 2009
If, in my fantasies, I live in a seraglio, a shuttered little jewel of a house filled with books, objets d’art, cushions, sinuous women, perfumes, rouge, and large baths, Robbie’s alter ego almost certainly inhabits a lair. On the floor there are coins and precious metals, jewels (for tempting sheltered young ladies?); on the walls glitter torches and instruments of torment; the place is labyrinthine. He can plot and plan there, as I can dream and dawdle in my place.
And just as I write him letters, he writes to me. An email from Robbie this morning turned me on so much—he got under my skin so precisely, with just the exact mixture of objectification and love—that I can’t think of any better way to show him how much I appreciate it than to share it. And—well—to show him off a little.
He wrote:
Gifted Sera,
I recall that this is a long-time, long, long time original fantasy of yours that we have discussed on more than one very hot occasion (and, early on, been close to being on the brink of once or twice). It seems to be largely the objectification, partly the service and usage, partly the multiple cocks that excite you so much.*
It is obviously a very hot fantasy for us both.**
Getting to a suitably excited, willing and safe and trusting place is the part to work out, one day in the seamy, sexy, slutty everything-you-ever-wanted future that we both say we want and can foresee.
I have lots of fantasies like that–you serving drinks dressed like an exhibitionist slut maid, putting various signs on you for public display or our private pictures, kneeling with a bag as a semen receptacle like in the above picture, glory holes, etcetera–delicious someday corruptions plotted and enjoyed together.
My signage for the blowjob queen bag would, however, likely be somewhat different.
Something like:
World’s very best blowjobs.
Try it and see.
Exclusive offer. Satisfaction guaranteed.
See owner for handling instructions.
And I do think that you are that good. And more.
Love and lust and fantasies galore,
~ R
I keep reading the sign for the bag, and smiling. That’s exactly what I’d want it to say. As long as you’ve learned basic instructions for using the toy, you can certainly playing with it for a few minutes.
And I’m curious–if this is your type of thing, what would you want your label (or your lover’s label) to say?
* * *
Note: the above photograph is not a picture of me. The tempting slut depicted is the lovely and deeply twisted kinkerbelle. Were I half as brave as she . . . well, I might cum just from thinking about what my life would be like if I were half as brave as she is.
I’m borrowing the picture—and if kink prefers, I’ll happily give it up—because Robbie has seen it and has drawn considerable inspiration from it on multiple occasions, as you can tell from his letter.
* Actually, me + multiple cocks excites him so much. One is enough, two my limit.
.** Poor man I have hounded him for years, explaining that many things that are hot for me in fantasy terrify me when it comes to living them. He’s clearly taken that comment to heart.
August 12, 2009
“You’re my hero,” I said to Robbie, gazing over at his sweat-glazed face.
“Why?” he said.
“Because you’re driving 5 hours each way so I can catch my flight home even though you have strep throat.” That was pretty much it. We’re still working out the logistics of my new home, including trying to figure out new transportation routes from here to there. Apparently, I thought a certain airport was way closer to his house than it actually was.
“Oh, that,” Robbie said glumly. The only time I’ve ever seen him sick is when he has strep, and then he’s sick as a dog. “Well, I don’t know about that, but when I say I’m gonna do something, I do it.”
He looked so serious, and seriously old-fashioned, I burst into (gentle) laughter. “Okay, Duke,” I said.
“What? Dupe?”
“No, Duke. You sound like John Wayne.”
“Oh yeah. Duke.” And he did a dead-on imitation of Wayne. “My favorite are the spanking movies.”
“John Wayne made spanking movies?”
“Yeah, three of ‘em. One of ‘em was him spanking a schoolteacher.”
“Katherine Hepburn?!?!” I asked, shocked, thinking of Rooster Cogburn.
“No, not her. Anyway. They’re pretty funny.”
“Yeah, it’s funny how open they were about that stuff in the 50s.”
Now, I don’t share a lot of submissives’ 1950s nostalgia; I don’t have a 50s fixation, for all kinds of reasons including primarily my college immersion in feminism.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara as much as the next girl . . .
I made a mental note to look them–and all the other spanking movies–up. Here’s a list for you.
{Oops. WordPress deleted my list when I went to save the post. I’m away for a few days, but I’ll put the list and the links in when I’m back!}
August 8, 2009
After I wrote my ever-so-totally-hysterical post of yesterday, Robbie and I sat down to talk about stuff between us, especially sex. It was a good, careful, thoughtful conversation. I managed to explain that it’s not that I don’t want to fuck him; it’s that I’m having some kind of female-impotence equivalent. (I’m sure there are more medically acceptable ways to say this, like, “a decrease in desire,” but oh well.)
After the conversation, we walked down to his barn. He grabbed a cat litter bucket (which are darn handy around a garden), pulled me into the barn’s dark, dank, dungeon-y basement, and plopped me down on the inverted bucket, which made a makeshift stool. He unzipped his fly and had me suck him off, giving me instructions about pace and approach, which he’s been doing a lot lately (and which I find both helpful and hot). He came quickly, a few days’ desire pent up inside him, and instead of swallowing his semen as quickly as I can, which I usually do, I held it in my mouth, liking tasting and feeling the volume of his desire.
So when he bent down to kiss me after he’d extracted himself from my throat, as he invariably does, I impishly flashed him a mouthful of cum instead of proferring him my lips. He came within an inch of being snowballed. “Eeew!” he yelled at the last second, rearing his head back just in time. We both broke up laughing so hard. (By the way, he’s not super-squeamish, but I totally surprised him. Since he is the king of effective practical jokes, I was pleased.)
Then last night, we got dressed up and went to a munch with the folks in our local scene, whom I like more and more. I don’t like munches that much, though, and was dreading things, but we had a great time, drinking beer on the patio of a summery restaurant, listening to live music, flashing our tits, etc. (Okay, well, I was the only one flashing my tits, but still.) It was warm and snuggly and loving and good.
Another good talk today and things are feeling fine. I’d say and write more, but I have a date to go get fisted, right now. Happy Saturday night . . .
Fun faux-polaroids from The Polaroid Freak Team.
August 7, 2009
R. and I have spent the last almost-two-weeks together, and most of it has been wonderful. We have been talking about things we have avoided for years, we have been working out ways to be together long-term, and we have had wonderful, happy days of travel and exploring.
Until about Monday, when everything started to feel wrong. We started fighting again . . . ugh, and I don’t even know about what. We’re working on not fighting when we talk about serious stuff, but lots of times I think, why is stuff between us such hard work? If it were right, it wouldn’t be nearly this hard.
As bad as that is the feeling, which has been around for a couple of months, that something in our BDSM is broken. My sex drive is at its lowest ebb in years and I don’t know why. (Yes, I know I need to talk to my doctor.) Meanwhile, because of all kinds of criticisms I’ve launched at Robbie, he’s feeling his confidence as a dominant at a massive low ebb. And on top of that, I can’t figure out what I want out of submission anymore, or even if I want to submit.
I just kind of don’t feel like having sex, for like, a year.
This is really unpleasant.
Sorry for such a downer entry. There are lots more good things going on but we had such a bummer of a non-successful fuck last night, and I just feel like poo. About 20 minutes into foreplay, Robbie said, “It seems like every time I do something, your response is discouraging.” I said, “That’s probably because I don’t really want to have sex.” He said, “That’s really sad and sad-making.”
And then he said, “But of course, you could still fulfill your promise.” (This is a tenant of our D/s. I once promised to give him head whenever he wanted. He promised to do the same to me, but since I don’t like it as much as he does and he’s the Dom, it basically means that he gets blow jobs whenever he wants.) I was happy to comply, and soon enough he was rock hard and ready to fuck me, which he did, and it was exciting too, because he was saying things like, “I just want to you to feel my cock inside you, I want to fuck you and have you feel how much I want to fuck you.” (I can’t remember the exact words, but it was kind of a “I’m so hot for you I want to (almost) rape you” sentiment, which was super hot.)
And then his erection disappeared and he wailed, “This time it’s me!”, and I rubbed his back for a while (which is kind of our aftercare) and he said, after some time, “You know, this is so fucked.”
I feel sure we can get through the sex stuff with the right attitude and some patience, but fuck if it’s not totally depressing. Especially because I’m not sure what the right attitude in this case is.
July 17, 2009
I’m really getting dizzy from how fast things are happening.
Last Friday, Robbie sent me Roses. I unintentionally capitalized that–probably because no one has ever given me roses except my best friend, who did it one Valentine’s day because I kept complaining that no one had ever given me flowers. Even my other boyfriends stuck to carnations and things. I was blown away.
Friday afternoon, we decided to spend the next few days together. Robbie rearranged his whole schedule (it was a lot to arrange) so we could have four night and three days of talking, fucking, and touristing. We had an amazing time. It was the seventh time he visited me in three and a half years. He’s managing two trips a year pretty steadily. 
Wednesday Robbie left and Thursday (as in, yesterday) I moved. I’m still stunned by the move. I don’t even have time to think about it because I have social events out the wazoo in my new home, and unpacking, and things like that.
And then next week Robbie’s coming to see me again. (So that’s his last visit for the year used up.)
I should write about something kinky. Oh yeah–he nearly had me suck him off in a museum.
I did blow him in the hotel parking lot, but we’re expert at parking lot blowjobs, so while it was thrilling, it wasn’t new.
We did about 15 new things, which I hope to have time to describe. Someday.
Oh, and the local Dom? I’m still in touch with him, but R. and I decided not to play with other folks for the near term, until we got a few things straightened out. We usually jump into bed with other people when we think things are going well for us, which immediately causes things to go not well for us, and then we rinse and repeat. We’re trying to do things a bit more cautiously this time.
Okay, well, um. Yeah. That’s the news. I gotta go attempt to shower without a shower curtain. Wish me luck.
July 7, 2009
I have written about 2 dozen drafts in my head the last few weeks, and several on paper or pixels. As soon as I get a few strands of narrative going, the threads of real life take a new turn, my fine twist breaks, and I can’t connect any of the events I’ve been writing about to the present state of my affairs. It happened again between the time I started this post, a couple days ago, and now, but I already picked out the illustrations for this one, and so this title is staying.
It has been impossible to write about what’s going on between me and Robbie over the last month, because it’s so hard to capture the rapidly-changing present. One night on our past visit, Robbie and I would have a deep and much-needed, cathartic talk about what was going on with pain in our BDSM relationship, and I’d be mentally taking notes on the realization we’d reached when the talk would tank into sadness and separate sides of the bed. Another night, I’d be seething for hours at the thought that he was going to leave me wet and frustrated on our last day together, until he came home at midnight from an unavoidable and important errand to make very tender and emotional love to me until the wee hours. On a school night, even. I left his house for home deeply in love but deeply pessimistic.
(There is so much to explain, and I have been not saying so much for so so long–here, and to him. I don’t know where to start, and so if you want to read, bear with me or ask questions about what doesn’t make sense, and if it’s all too confusing or too raw, I apologize. But I can’t keep all this bottled up and I can’t keep writing about us if I am not more honest and I can’t be dishonest about us anymore.)
Two weeks ago, we tried to figure out when we would get together this summer, and he could not tell me when he had time to see me. Around that time, I read an article about babies and found myself sobbing. Ten days ago, I told him that I had stopped being able to see a way for us to make a future together, and that though I loved him, I wanted a husband and a family and I needed to go look for those things before my clock had fully and finally ticked itself out. (I am close, closer than most. I am 37-and-a-half.)
Robbie dealt with all that with some equanimity. I had told him before I even met him that I wanted a family, and we talked more about it the first weekend we met.
But then I actually met someone I wanted to date–a local Dom who asked me to play–and the emotional shit hit the fan. Or perhaps that’s not fair to Robbie–I think he would have felt the emotional impact anyway. But that event made it particularly strong. And somehow in the middle of this we started talking. A lot.
We’ve been talking every day for an hour or two and spilling our guts. Many of the times we talked over the past two years–many of which, in fact, were over email–seem like pale echoes of actual meaningful conversations, now that we are having the latter. We’ve stopped the incessant fighting. We are crying and telling each other we love the other and talking about really bad and painful stuff–and good stuff too–and we are so, so vulnerable. And I did not expect any of this.
I wasn’t (consciously) breaking up with Robbie or dating other people in order to “get him back”; I expected Robbie to let me go without much difficulty because I thought he had already let me go. And he believed, it turned out, that I had been going for some time, perhaps believed that I didn’t really want to try.
I don’t really know what else to say. I just am still here and still in love with Robbie. And I am reeling in good and bad ways from having spent a day playing with someone else. And all of a sudden it seems that Robbie was right that life is not a dress rehearsal and that he and I are really very necessary to each other and we best stop making a hash of things because we just can’t afford that. And also, because we don’t have to.
And maybe I can write some of the other two-dozen posts if I let out this rollercoasterish one, and if it all doesn’t have to make sense. Because it’s not all adding up now but it’s closer to that than it has been in a long, long time, and mostly I don’t feel miserable when I think of Robbie anymore, I just feel full of love and happiness and that is pretty darn nice.
Cool drawings, including a few dominatrixes, by Swedish illustrator Klas Fahlen. Check out his cute animation, from which I stole the tiny ones (click to make them grow). Also: more Swedes where he came from, on the same site.
June 28, 2009
Lately, I’ve been wondering why it is that sadists very often say about their masochistic partners, “And then I decided to hurt him a little” or “I really wanted to hurt her then”.
I rarely notice masochists saying, “And then she decided to hurt me for a while,” or “I could tell he really wanted to hurt me.”
It might just be me, but I notice doms (sadists okay whatever yeah I know S&M and D/s are not the same thing can we move on please cool mkay) saying this hurt thing a lot.
And I rarely notice it in reverse. I hear subs talking about the specific ways they like to be hurt–specific types of pain or specific implements.
Does anyone have any idea why this might be? This is a genuine question. I am pretty sure there’s a linguistic difference but I’m not sure why.
Maybe because in English it’s quite natural to say, “I feel pain” but not “I inflict pain”?
Maybe because “I hurt” in the passive sense has an emotional connotation that people tend to stay away from? Or it just seems to suggest bad pain?
Could it be that the infliction of pain is really different for the top, who isn’t, of course, feeling it–it’s all just pain? Whereas the bottom feels the nuances?
My sadistic streak is my weakest link . . . it’s hard for me to bring myself to hurt someone, even when I know the person is getting a great deal of pleasure out of it. And so I struggle to understand sadism; I can’t wrap my mind around it very well, which gets in the way of things between me and Robbie. With everything else, I can see things fairly well through his eyes, but when it comes to hurting, I start to feel very lost.
And that’s a shame, because I not only like when he hurts me; I need him to hurt me.
Edit 1: I realize I have only noticed women dominants talking about hurting their boyfriends, not male dominants talking about hurting their girlfriends. I have no idea why this is. Maybe my sample is skewed.
Edit 2: In my further search for evidence I just found this post by Dev, telling about a time Jos asked her to hurt him.
Okay so let me rephrase the question: am I the only one who thinks this is the way people talk? How do you talk about pain, if you want it? How do you talk about hurting, if you want to do it?
Tell me everything!
Graphic pics at tears.of.eros.
June 26, 2009
I’m here. But not really. Because in two weeks, my cats and I are moving again, back to my home town. I’m moving into my mother’s basement apartment. I decided it made more sense for me to live with her, rent-free, and job hunt at the worst time in probably the last 3 decades than to have her subsidize me to the tune of $Obscene/month in order to stay where I am and work at my wonderful but part-time and pathetically paying job. (Did that sentence make any sense?)
So this is just to say that I’m here, but not totally. A little distracted. More soon, thinking of you, wish you were here, and so forth.
Illustration by Kenny Harris (a.k.a. Sicksheep) via Illustrophile.
June 17, 2009
This visit, as an experiment, Robbie and I agreed that I would get to do a lot of the cooking. I have been begging to do this for months, because I love to cook and because cooking for someone is an obvious way to provide service. (Why did I say I wasn’t a service submissive? I forget.)
Usually, having me cook is inconvenient, because Robbie lives with folks not all of whom would appreciate my cooking. But this visit we have had his place to our ownsome, and I have gotten to whip up quite a few things that pleased him.
Last night, as we sat down to a salad that I’d made and some sausages he’d grilled to perfection, I began to brag about what excellent food we’d put on the table, between us, the last week or so. (Apparently, one of my frequent conversational themes is, “Look at what a great team we make.”) And I poked fun at myself for ever having believed, as I did at one point, that our respective eating habits and preferences were such that we’d be unable to have a happy relationship. (I’m nothing if not hyper-dramatic.)
Robbie looked at me a little confused. He didn’t remember what I was talking about. “Don’t you remember,” I said, between bites of sausage and mouthfuls of beer, “that fight we had, about two years ago, when I wanted to talk about food, and you said that you thought menu planning was the least of our problems?”
“I don’t remember the fight, but you’re right, if we lived together menu planning would be the least of our problems.”
He looked at his sausage, and I waited for what he was going to say next.
“It would be cock for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” he said. He took a drink of beer, warming to his theme, while considering the label on the can. “Would you care for an appetizer? Could I offer you some cock? No? Well then you must be ready for the main course then–big, steaming cock. How about dessert? We have an excellent mousse au cock.”
He looked at me, totally deadpan. “Care for a digestif?”
I was in fits of giggles by now, but he wouldn’t stop. “Perhaps you would like to choose our special menu, table d’hote. Seven courses of cock. Magnifique.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think menu planning would be our biggest problem. I don’t think it would be a problem at all.”
Amen to that.
The work of Roy Stuart.
June 16, 2009
Robbie owns five acres of stunning farmland, a fact I don’t think I’ve mentioned here before. His land is so beautiful he often jokes that I’m in the relationship for his property rather than for him. The joke is funny because we both know it’s a litte too close to the truth. The first night I met him, he took my hand and led me out to show me the back fields, and the night sky above them, and wrapped me in his arms while I sighed happily. “Feels like home, doesn’t it?” he murmured into my ear. “It does,” I nodded.
It still does, now more than ever. He and I have plowed and planted here, buried and raised pets, kissed in virtually every corner. I’ve written so little this visit because we’re in the midst of laying out a garden that is 2800 sq. feet, or maybe 2900–I forget, or he recalculates. In fact, there has not been a whole lot of time and energy for things besides eating, working, eating, and sleeping. (Especially since I sleep 11 hours a day when given the opportunity.)
Nonetheless, Robbie has done more than his share to facilitate fun in the midst of farming. A couple of days ago, he had me string a trellis for the 6″ snow peas and snap peas that are eager to climb something, anything. I wove and tied binder twine (or is it baling twine?) in a zig-zag pattern between two horizontal pieces of clothes-line. The plan is that at the end of the summer, we can throw pea vines and binder twine directly into the compost bin.
Robbie had to teach me a few knots in order for me to make the trellis: a square knot, to tie pieces of twine together, an overhand knot, so that I could tie the twine to the wire, and a half-hitch, so I could secure the overhand knot. Well, he didn’t so much as teach me the knots as teach me the names for them, and make me aware that motions I’d been making rather randomly all my life were distinct and distinguishable. A half a day spent tying scratchy fibers definitely got my bondage juices flowing, though, and Robbie is more than attuned enough to me to take advantage of any and all juices he notices.
Later that afternoon, I took a shower and asked if there was anything more to do. He said he had a particular task for me that might give me an idea of what my long-term farming “duties” might be like if I were around the place more often. It turned out that this involved wearing a chest harness while I raked up a few grass cuttings from the front lawn and put them around some plants as mulch. When I’d done that comfortably, Robbie tightened the ropes and gave me another job to do–possibly the difficult task of taking a nap. (After three years, he is getting accustomed to my habits.) And after one more readjustment of the ropes, I got to set the table, make a salad for dinner, and sit down with him for a bit before my ropes came off.
I love rope almost as much as I love Robbie and his farm–in honesty, it is sometimes difficult o say which holds pride of place in my heart. I was thinking about rope today, and about this post, and about how if I wrote it, I might be able to explain how deep and primal my love for rope is. I thought about two 7-week-old kittens we have on the farm, and how, the other day, their mother plopped herself down in front of us and started to nurse them. While the kittens pawed and kneaded her belly, the mother cat’s eyes were almost shut from pleasure. A steady purr rose from the entire group. Bondage is like that for me–a comforting presence, a steady pull that makes me feel loved and wanted, content and happy. And luckily for me, the ties that bind me aren’t just literal.
More images from the phenomenal Yuko Shimizu.
June 6, 2009
I am so thoroughly bummed out. I have a zillion posts in my mind, I have all sorts of interesting pictures to share, I am leaving tomorrow to go see Robbie–and I am hideously sick.
Well, hideous is a considerable overstatement. This is one of those colds that just lingers around, and lingers, and feels sort of like the results of spending a night in a smoky bar drinking too many different things. I’ve had it for about a week. It is time for it to leave.
I hope I’ll be able to write some things from Robbie’s house. But he’s assured me he has plenty of work for me to do, and we usually manage to keep busy.
Hope everyone stays safe and well!
. . . via modfetish . . .
June 2, 2009
Robbie has been melting my heart lately. He has been trying so hard to be considerate and thoughtful that I can’t help but find him amazing. This is inconvenient, because in some ways I’ve become pretty invested in and inured to the notion of our relationship as inherently dysfunctional and doomed, and it’s scary to let any hope back in. But the hope is there, anyway, flowering and budding away like the young fruit tree that I gave him for his birthday this year.
I’ve been watching in fascination as Gray Lily over at Journey Into Submission has reinvested herself and devoted herself to her relationship. Fascination, and a bit of jealousy. I feel twinges of envy whenever anyone’s love life is going well and mine is not; for some reason, it’s worse when the people involved are kinky. I think it might be that I feel like everyone else is doing it right, and we’re not. If you saw us lying, spent and sweaty, in bed together after a raucous fuck, it would probably be hard to identify anything we’re doing wrong, but I still have that nagging sense that well . . . we’re dysfunctional and doomed.
Gray wrote recently about how she can truly be herself in front of her partner in bad times. This twisted something in me; Robbie finds it hard to deal with my see-sawing emotions, although he is better at handling them than most men (people?) I know. When I cry or get distressed, he’s often a rock. Later, though, he tells me frankly that the intensity of my feelings alarms him, and I feel like my confidence in him, and my confidences, get held against me.
So when, earlier tonight, one small work-related issue sent me into a tearful tailspin, I hesitated before dialing his number. But Robbie has far more professional experience than I, decades of working in and negotiating complex organizations with exacting and rigorous standards. So I called.
He was amazing. He listened, he was patient, he let me cry, and he gave me great advice. He even ignored me when I argued with his attempts to put things in perspective. I said, “Who’s been sprinkling fairy dust on you lately to make you so fabulous?”
“Me,” he said. “Now, what do you need to do next?”
I told him that I had to finish a paragraph of a letter I’d spent the whole weekend trying to write.
“Right. So you can write that now, or you can sink further into your meltdown. Which are you going to do?”
“Write the paragraph.”
“Right.” And then he told me that he was going to walk his dog and shut the house up for the evening. He suggested I finish what I was writing before he called me back, in about an hour. I did it in three minutes, and then I wrote this. Nothing like motivation to help get a job done.
Really sexy, fun photos over at fre_nate’s flickr photostream.
