I have definitely crossed some sort of threshhold.
So, I’m in the northeast on a vacation. And yes, still, to visit p.- which is going as usual on his end, and very differently on mine. It’s the last time, and he’s going to regret it. And you all will get to read all about it, very soon. There may even be pictures or a video.
Anyhoo. While here biding my time, and visiting with friends whose schedules became unexpectedly overqhelmed, I decided to place a Craigslist ad for some entertaining dates. It’s always a fun excercise- responses leave plenty of psychological flotsam to ponder. My ad just said I was looking for a nice simple date, no expectations beyond good conversation. And for some smoke; I don’t drink really- nor do I enjoy how it makes me feel during or after, so I come by my chemical relaxation differently.
My evening plans ended up being made with an attorney much older than me and very different from the younger men who replied. Mainly because he had the goods and didn’t fuck around with asking me to make plans and letting me know he understood what I’d been looking for right off, while everyone else was still working their one liner emails. Plus I spent about ten years dating much older men and they’re generally putty in my hands, he had easy going plans for the night, and I knew I was going to have a long day, and I’m not really a crowded bar type.
Before meeting we spoke ont he phone a few times and I should have seen the night’s events coming when he wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise…but I knew he was a short New Yorker and chalked it up to that from past experiences. We met up for coffee first, and then went to his place for a game of scrabble over some smoke and white russians and hockey in the background. I know- exciting, but it was right up my alley. We flirted and bantered and it was very fun. Really what I needed after a long and tedious week. After the scrabble game he made his move on me pretty quickly, and I wasn’t totally warmed up to the idea at first but decided what the hell once we started making out. He was a good kisser.
I’d mentioned in a few different subtle ways that I was kinky- I almost made the word ‘quirt’ (on a triple word score) – which is a very small whip like thing that I had in my purse- we had a ‘that’s a good word’ joke going, so I said “that’s a great word, and I know because I have one”. And thought that I had made it fairly clear that I am not the submissive type in other less subtle ways- I’m no wallflower and don’t give off those vibes. So when he grabbed a handful of hair and began to tug on it I politely but firmly said “Don’t pull my hair”.
He backed down a bit but kept getting aggressive in other ways. Not in a threatening way at all, or I’d have used my already well placed knee. More in a Dom sort of way.
I can and do enjoy vanilla sex, and with someone I know and trust I can enjoy some rough play during sex, but I’ve never enjoyed someone who gets aggressive right away since it’s usually a sign their either violent in other ways or a Dom. And I rarely end up making out with someone who is. So, to get my point across, I found his nipple through his shirt, and pinched it. First a little, then harder. He seemed to like it, we kissed again and I kept pinching… He said “Ow!”, and I said “Good”, and gave him a wicked look. He said something like “I don’t know about that”, and went to kiss me again. By this time I was not giving receptive body language back as he tried to pull me in various directions, but was still allowing him to kiss my neck. Then he went to pinch MY nipple, AND he started to try to pull me into a laying position on the couch by my leg, which is when I had to put the kaibosh on the whole thing and explain that I don’t ’switch’, at all. And apparently, neither does he.
He didn’t seem to believe me. And made several attempts kissing me again as I worked to extricate myself from the couch. I finally had to raise my voice to get it across- it wasn’t going to happen. I excused myself to the ladies room and quietly ordered a taxi with an iphone app. I came back in and said “Aww, come on. You’re not going to let me tie you up and spank you?” – and he said stunned “That’s what *I* say!” with his mouth ajar. Finally, he saw the humor in the whole situation and we had a good laugh. But he still kept trying to get me into the sack and push me around, saying how he’d never had anyone not like that sort of thing. He was also disappointed he wasn’t going to get to use his new sport-sheets set, and clearly a bit angry he wasn’t going to be having sex with me- although he did his best to hide it. Thank GAWD I sussed him out before I got into the bedroom, or you may have been reading about all of this is the newspaper instead of my blog. While laughing together and waiting for the cab, he mentioned that ‘this would go in the book’- a book he’s writing which he wouldn’t describe. I told him I’d be writing about it too, and told him I’d send him a link if seeing a man’s penis covered in tiny clothespins wouldn’t bother him. He turned a funny shade and said, no thanks. Then tried to kiss me again. I thought about twisting up his sac before I walked out, but in the end just went for a nipple again as the cab arrived. So easy.
In the past, I’ve had no problem and in fact have thoroughly enjoyed having all kinds of sensual interactions, including those with a more physically aggressive partner, especially when I have no intention of it being a long term thing. I have never NEEDED to be Dominant the first time I was intimate with someone whom I’ve not approached as a dominant, or felt oddly when dominating behavior comes about during foreplay- usually I can turn it around pretty quickly, too. But this time was different. Very different. As funny and silly as the story is, I recognized right away that I had definitely crossed a line somewhere back down the road without knowing it. I felt a little wistful for a simpler time. And a little surprised- I wasn’t expecting that. And a lot proud, as I can remember a time not so long ago when I wasn’t sure enough of myself to have stopped and left, or spoken up about my desires and needs so easily. I found myself wishing it wasn’t 3 am and that I had an easy way to get over to p.’s house ASAP, to make use of my new discovery.
It was a bit strange, and a lot ironically funny. But I’m still wondering how I crossed that line, and how far back down the road it really is.
Lunches with the exes
The last few weeks have been soo … emotionally dramatic. I keep trying to blog about them and ending up with these long messes that don’t even make sense to me. I’ve done a lot of personal introspection and that’s too hard to blog about for now, I’m still distilling. And of course, as always happens when I try and move on, purge and renew, some of my exes made appearances.
When things ended/but didn’t end with p., I was planning a final trip to see him before he moved to MA. We’d been talking about it on and off for a long time. He’d promised specifically, not to cancell last minute, or make up excuses; just to let things happen. I had arranged my daughter’s yearly visit with her grandparents to coincide with the two weeks before he moved. He knew, within a few day period with allowances for his work time, when I was arriving- I chose not to share my specific arrival because of his past cancellations …always the night before I was to come. I made the mistake of talking to him online within that time period and he went from being so excited he couldn’t contain himself to using the safewords I’d given him to totally end the relationship in about 3 minutes. (of course the next week he was back apologizing, rinse, repeat)
Yes. I have spent yet another of my yearly breaks at home. Instead of doing what I’d planned to do with and to p.. But this post isn’t about him, since I’m not posting about him anymore (right- you are welcome to all roll your eyes at this point). The explanation was just necessary to set up why and how that led to boredom and something bad…. A moment of weakness.
For those of you who may remember I started my foot fetish work and immediately got a request for an appointment from L.; who then didn’t stop emailing me until I had to say something nasty to him. He later replied that he totally understood and apologized. You may also remember that he had a bracelet I’d left with him in a previous moment of weakness a few years ago, when I realized what a bad idea it had been and tried to sneak out while he was asleep. It was from my grandmother’s estate and he knew this; but didn’t know it had never been worn and had spent 40 years in a closet- it had no real value, sentimental or otherwise. We’d gotten into a nasty fight not long after that unsuccessful sneaking out, and I’d told him to keep it in an effort to make a clean break. Being very sentimental, he wouldn’t let it die and kept using it as a means to keep contact with me until I’d been successful in losing his efforts to find me. Until, that is, the foot fetish site. Anyway. Back to the moment of weakness. I emailed him to see if he wanted to go to lunch. I’d been introspective and hoped he had reached a stable enough mental point that I could ask him some questions, seek some closure for myself. I wanted to get back the bracelet and remove any further reason to keep contact with me. And if I am honest with myself, was really really horny AND wanted to tie him up tight and enjoy myself with him one last time before asking him those questions. I know. Bad idea.
He accepted my invitation as quickly as I knew he would. He told me he’d just been laid off again (had lost his job not long after we broke up), and was still fighting his depression and anxiety, starting a new medication that weekend. I decided to assess the situation over lunch before involving ropes…I’d already offered and had it accepted. I wore strappy sandals and his favorite color of polish, but tried to not dress up too much- just a white summer skirt and tee-shirt. We met and it was clear he’d been crying. Hugged and …whew. That was hard for both of us. We spent almost five hours sitting there catching up, flirting and making our old private jokes like it hadn’t been four years, but tiptoeing around it. Bittersweet. His hands shook, and there were moments I thought he might break down…and we weren’t talking about anything too deep. I’d mention my daughter or his favorite cat, and he’d tear up. It was sad and hard to watch. It was clear he wasn’t ready for my questions. To hear them or to answer them. By the time I decided that, he had mentioned my shoes and polish a few times. I mentioned that we’d been there a bit long and said we should go somewhere else; he said he had to go feed an out of town friend’s animals. Puhleease. He went for an opening just as he walked me to the car. I got in and he held the door open. He mentioned the shoes again and then asked if I was wearing panties. I responded by telling him he might find out but then there were those poor unfed pets. His posture changed, he patted me on the back goodbye, and shut the door. Whew. Crisis averted. Oh yeah, I did get my bracelet.
Back when sparky and I ended things, I realized I’d left my favorite silver hoops on his headboard and emailed him a few days after that last dinner to ask him about them. He had them but was leaving for vacation; asked me to lunch when he returned. We finally made plans earlier this week for lunch yesterday. I told him to call me Thursday to set a time. He did and talked to me for an hour and twenty minutes. I did a lot of the talking but he actually asked me questions. This is something he didn’t do much of when we were dating. We got into a discussion about chastity and he got all hot and bothered. I knew because his voice changes and he gets all breathy when he has a hard on. Before going to bed later Thursday night I checked my profile for the maid position to reply to some responders, and saw that sparky had been by my profile. Hrrmm. We met at a closeby mexican restaurant; I had been stuck in traffic so he was there ahead of me. And had obviously seated himself so that I could face the door- he does read this blog. He had also taken the liberty of ordering me tea. I don’t really like restaurant tea, but it was a very nice gesture. We had a nice lunch, caught up on things. It seemed like he wanted to say or ask something but was having a hard time doing so. We were talking about one of my brothers, the golden child; whose super power is luck and who is also a bit holier than thou. I told sparky that when he gets too big for his britches I just ‘accidentally’ send him a link to thinks like penis sounds. That led to sparky telling me more about his kind experiences and feelings about it than I could get out of him in nine months of having him in my bed. I’m beginning to think it’s this restaurant- it’s the same one he brought his CBT to to have me lock him up at. After about two hours I had to be rather direct about ending the lunch and told him I’d meet him outside, where I had one of his sweatshirts in my car. He went to the men’s room, I sat on the bench outside for a smoke and picked up the Chronicle for a quick read of the letters to the editor. He snuck up and sat down close next to me looking like he was about to spit it out.
“Yes?” I turned to him.
He stomped his foot slightly and pursed his lips. “It was nice talking with you last night”
And then he quickly kissed me on the lips. I told him that I agreed and he could call anytime he felt like it. It was nice. Just nice. I walked him to my car to get his shirt, we joked a bit about him wearing it in the 100 degree heat, he said it again.
“It was really nice having lunch with you”
“Yes. We can do it again.”
Another kiss. I told him goodbye and drove off.
So um. Yeah. That’s my tale of luches with the exes. One moment of weakness averted, one revealed.
(I will try and be nice and go through and cross link all the old posts this one refers to sometime soon for you newer readers- but you can always use the search function at the bottom of the page.)
Clearing Cobwebs
Ok, so I’m not so great at consistent posting here. What can I say? This is a personal, for fun site. I’m not concerned with page hits, or how popular I become in ‘the community’ with it. And I work online. Lately, about 16 hours a day, poring over thousands of lines of code. My work isn’t always so intensive, but when it is, it’s pretty hard to want to spend any more time at my laptop when my work day is over.
I guess I’m that way all around. Stress really takes the fun out of me. And, right now my life IS stress. For those of you who have followed me for the last year or so, you know that I am on my way uphill from a bad financial spot after hitting a very low point in a deep depression that lasted a few years. I’m say- a third of the way up; and things keep getting steeper…for all of us, I try to remember. Then there’s the kid. Getting ready for her senior year and college. And bleeding my schedule and wallet dry. I thought I was prepared for more expenses the last few years of high school, but sheesh. Try over a grand last month for various fees, extra curricular events, competitions, deposits of trips and summer courses, advanced testing, college prep, and senior rings and jackets….that’s before lunches and pocket money. Of course, home ownership has become costly. My fridge has gone out and part of my fence blew down, and HOA fees are due. And there is family too. Dad is doing fair, health wise. A brother is getting married in the summer. Everyone wants my time in free web work and visits in which they will do little but proffer advice on how to ‘fix’ my life. Lately I’ve felt as if even a 72 hour day wouldn’t offer enough daylight to get everything done; and have hit the ground running before 6 am and fallen into bed after midnight still clothed almost every day for 3 weeks. And yes, my body is telling me about it. I had two ocular migraines this month- fortunately painless (yes, migraines can be painless); but one left me unable to see (anything but a flashing ‘floater’ and the same effect you’d see if you stared at a bright light for several minutes), basically, for about 13 hours. I took the opportunity to sleep. And think.
I have lots to write about here. sparky and I have actually NOT talked about the blog because I’ve only seen him twice since that last post about it. One day was a slave shopping trip I had planned for Valentine’s day; I took him for his first trip to a lingerie store, and planned to go to a toy store afterwards but we ran out of time. I wrote about 3/4 of a post about it and got pulled away to something. When I find the file I wrote it in I will update, it was fun. I used my new purchase from BodyAware.
A little hurrah for Bodyaware here…GEEZUS those guys are fast. I ordered Wednesday with standard shipping (tee-hee- I first typo-ed ‘whipping’…wonder what is on MY mind?), and it was in my mailbox Saturday morning. WOW, and kudos to BodyAware, again. The chastity belt was exactly as stated on the site. Real leather with fabric facing fused to the inside. Came with it’s own luggage lock and set of keys. And under $30 bucks. And mmmmm….pretty. It is one size fits all, which means the waist strap is almost as long as I am tall; so I will have to find my leather needles and cut and edge it, maybe make a loop to hold the free end, but for now I’ve been using it as a handy on-slave-strap to smack with and a lead. On sparky about a bit over a foot is left dangling down his backside. Handy. But not pretty and it doesn’t tuck in well. However, if you are a … let’s say husky man … it WILL fit you. Easily.
Anyway, it was after that date that things got so crazy busy for me. And after that date that I realized I had to do some real soul searching. About what I want in a submissive and in a relationship. As hard as I have tried, I cannot feel a spark for sparky. And this makes my time with him feel more like time spent with a client (yes, that kind) than time spent with someone who is serving me. Like it’s not about me, at all. Not just because of the lack of spark, but that has much to do with it. Fortunately, I don’t think sparky is head over heels, and it will just fizzle out amicably.And yes, p. and I are still talking, sort of. This is a subject I’ll have to cover later.
Anyway, this soul searching led me to engage in some research and learning into empathy, both in general and in it’s relation to BDSM. As in being an empath, not being generally empathetic. I’ve always known about my empathic skills, which I’ll get into later; but like most with them, have struggled to recognize and live with them healthily. One particular effect on ME is to really have difficulty discerning my own wishes and desires from others in my life. It’s very easy to ’soak up’ what everyone else needs and make it my own. That’s been a good thing for parts of my life…becoming a single mother at fifteen for example, or having a handicapped sibling in a large family not always capable of giving her the best attention. It made me a great escort, and makes me a legendary lover. But it’s also been bad for me, in that I’ve rarely been able to consider my own wants and needs separately from my responsibilities and obligations to others. And I think that has much to do with my dominant tendencies, AND my reluctance to delve into them. As does being empathic. There’s plenty on that subject I expect to explore. I’m curious to know if other dominants who have empathic talents feel these abilities affect their desires and role.
Governor Spitzer’s dance around his dalliances, and the embarrassing press display of false prudishness over it, has me thinking on another article or two in my Sex Worker Stereotype series. I watched a pundit on CNN yesterday say something to the effect of “I’ve met him close to 20 times, and am shocked. He seemed like a very nice man who loved his wife and family and was a good person….”- of course these are not her words verbatim. But it seemed ridiculous to me. Why wouldn’t he be a nice man and a good person, or love his wife, even if he DID see an escort? Personally, I’d find it morally appalling if the lady (and the money spent and security detail used for seeing her) was a *lover*; someone to whom Mr. Sptitzer was obligating himself and giving of himself personally to. In THAT case I’d wonder about how seriously he took his obligation to his family, or his character as a person. But not that he may have seen a sex worker on his own private time. It seems to me that a man willing to carry on an ongoing affair outside of his marriage with an officially unpaid companion is much more morally corrupt than one who indulges himself with someone in whom he plans to invest no emotion or romance. And while I don’t know about the details of the investigation, it is days like this when I think about the number of colleagues I had who worked in circles like the one in question, that I am rather happy to have had my name out of the grapevine for a few years. I had an article planned about sex worker’s scruples which included quite a bit about keeping the trust of privacy between client and worker; and while I feel that’s an important point- thousands of workers zip it while only a few sing- maybe this isn’t the time to make that point.
Lastly, I have some literotica and some posts about the mental aspects of D/s to work on. I’ll try and bring one or two of them to fruition very soon so you have something fun to read.
There’s also some work to do here on the site- clearing out of cobwebs and freshening up my theme and such. So keep an eye out for changes….I’m still around.
Just the way it is. Performed by Ms. R and her backup singers, the Vainglorious Exes.
“it’s just the way it is”…
When p. said this a week or so ago, it really pissed me off. Really. And it really worked on me for several days, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. Or, more accurately, I couldn’t, or didn’t want to, remember why. While trying to stay physically busy and mentally distracted, somewhere between vaccuming and finding a well hidden php parse error for a client, a little recurring memory in the back of my head set itself free and wafted through my thoughts:
that’s just the way it is”
…echoed through my head in a cacophony of several voices from the past that I have worked hard to forget.
And suddenly I knew, remembered what “that’s just the way it is” stands for. Again.
I sat, a little woozy from the sudden rush of memories and voices and mental images. Working backwards, I recognized L.’s voice immediately, the man with whom I had my last long term, and cuckolding relationship. Telling me on my 30th birthday that it didn’t matter that he finally -after years- could tell me he loved me, or that my daughter had grown so attatched to him, or that we worked so perfectly together both in and out of bed. It took weeks of fighting to get him to admit the reason. Which was, that I was, and in his eyes always would be, an escort. As he’d suggested when I hit a rough financial spot, and helped me become; and that this ultimately meant that he couldn’t commit to me. I made the biggest gesture to him I could think of, ‘retiring’ publicly and replacing my website with a message to my clients about why, and a personal message to L. expressing my wish to do whatever it took. In the end, it was still ‘just the way it is’.
Harmonizing above L.’s deep voice was K.’s. He was an awkward Canadian salesman I dated for a couple of years during one of my ‘off’ stints with L.; and lucky to have me. He had initially met me as an escorting client who reached out to me personally when my daughter was injured; but when it finally came down to brass tacks, he made no bones about not committing, at all, because of how we met. “That’s just the way it is…” – I do recall those words fitting into what I wish had been our final conversation. He showed up 9 months later in legal trouble, hoping to save his visa status with a marriage proposal, possibly the only one I may ever recieve. Made in the car as I drove him to pick up his car post jail stay. I never wanted ejector seats in my car quite so badly as I did at that exact moment. What a cherished memory. That’s just the way it is.
There were a few chorus boys, minor flings that could have been much more, singing along in the background a refrain of “just the way it is..is..is”. None of them left enough of an impression to remember the circumstances, but the phrase stood out. And the reasoning behind it was all the same.
Then my first real love, S. broke through in a clear solo, reminding me that I wasn’t really the ‘resume’ wife he needed for his military intelligence followed by medical career. Despite the years I’d spent putting him through school, the support through military basic and tech school and an overseas station during which his non-custodial daughter was severely abused by her stepfather and there were all manner of legal proceedings and difficulties to manage stateside, and during a trip I’d made to help him prepare for another overseas deployment. “That’s just the way it is”. He did say it. Followed by a dear jane letter a few months later, telling me the woman he’d itnroduced me to so I’d have someone to run errands with on base during my visit (another deployed soldier’s soon to be ex wife) was now his wife, and never to contact him again. And he repeated the refrain as if it was some sort of justification or explanation.
There are other times men in my life have used the phrase, too; which is why I’m surprised it took me a week to recall the real meaning. I can remember my father, a military officer and non-custodial parent most of my life, explaining to me glibly why I only heard from him once a year or so with the useless euphemism. Or my daughter’s father, explaining to at age 18 to 15 year old me why he couldn’t be bothered to help me figure out what to do about my unexpected pregancy, or a decade ago why he’d left the country to reside where his child support couldn’t be legally collected and would always drive nice cars, dress well, and live grandly, no matter what I thought C. needed from him. That’s just the way it is. It’s a more comfortable way for those with an emotional bunker mentality to say “I’m going to think of myself first”, and by “myself” I mean the reality of the vainglorious hauteur, not the high-brow noblesse that people like this have become in their own heads.
I don’t like to let these people enjoy their comfortable little lie to themselves. I usually find a way to extract a confirmation of the real reason, in one way or another. This time, it was a brief email message to p. Friday morning; composed like a mirror so that how he responded, or didn’t, would make the truth an unavoidable elephant in the room. No response. It’s early yet to ‘call’ it (not really, but work with me), but I’m pretty sure I know now why it is just the way it is.
*Shivers*…deja vu dreams
Ooooh.
This will be short because I’m still half asleep and need to get back to it. But I awoke in the midst of a dream that was a crystal clear recollection of a forgotten childhood fantasy that I need to record.
Wrapped in an elegant creme coat (which I now own, now that I think of it in looking this post over for typos) and gloves over a coctail dress, I’m outside the door to an upper level high rise apartment with a few girlfriends, fiddling with keys after a late night out. Entering a dimly lit room, with modern furnishings and a bank of floor to ceiling windows covered in grey gauzy curtains through which the city lights were visible, we are met by many emerging, beautiful naked men practically climbing over each other to greet me and take my coat, kiss my feet and hands, offer my guests drinks and comfortable seats. Perhaps as many as twenty. Begging to be first for my attentions, offering themselves in various ways to each of us. My giggling friends are surprised that what I’d told them was kept at this apartment was true. I point out the bedrooms and retire to my own with several boys following.
As a fairly young child- perhaps age 9 or 10- this all came to me in a sudden single mental flash- an image so much shorter than it takes to write; and my fantasy never went much beyond this. I know there were more, but this is the one I remember most. It would pop up as I was falling asleep, I often dismissed it because I had no frame of reference for anything like it, and had honestly completely forgotten it since maybe age 14. Tonight it was as fresh as the first time it presented itself and I wanted to record it to think about later. Weird. Cool, but weird.
***edit added the following morning ***
I wrote that at 3:30 last night and should add that in my fantasy/dream, it was always clear to me that this apartment is not my home, rather, just storage. 
I couldn’t stop thinking about this after trying to go back to sleep last night and being completely unsuccessful after waking again twice to such a vivid vision of entering the master (or, for Tom, Mistress) suite, undressing without acknowledging the boys also in the room, perching myself atop a high mahogany antique bed, and turning to the foot of the bed to face …. someone who vanished before I woke up. That was a new addition. I don’t really have many recurring dreams, and since my twenties have experienced the loss of the ability to recall most of my dreams much of the time. As a youngster and teenager, I recalled my dreams every morning, and never gave it much thought- so not being able to do so did disturb me for a while. I’ve long since grown used to it and don’t think about it anymore; but I’m reminded of it when I DO awake with a dream fresh in my mind. I’m kind of excited about going back to sleep now (and as an insomniac that is a treat!), and since I’m running on about an hour of sleep that’s where I’m headed. The mind is a wondrous thing.
Goodnight.