Yes. Foreplay.

Sometimes I am amazed at how two pretty bright, well-educated people can be so -- dense where it really matters.  Between us, He and I have more education than many people, and I usually think we've got a fair level of experience and common sense.  Yet, when we get into the very center and heart of our intimate relationship, we are as awkward and clumsy as any pair of 16 year olds in the back of Daddy's Buick. 

I am at least half the problem... maybe more than half.  Between my natural shyness, and my honest lack of understanding of how my own body works in the aftermath of the hysterectomy, I am clueless and frustrated and scared when it comes to things sexual.  I have fostered and nurtured a stubborn and lingering belief that there is some magical formula that could reawaken my sexual nature, but I had no plan for how that would ever happen.

As for Master, remember that He is the Man that T and I refer to, sardonically, as "Mr. Romance."  He'd be happy to do whatever it is that would make me happy, but as long as He's happy, there's no driving need on His part to figure that out.  That isn't a character flaw.  It IS a Dominant thing -- it is the nature of these types to see the world in terms of how things are working for them.  So, when I look unhappy, and dissatisfied, it distresses Him, and unless He can get some clear sense of what the problem is, His reaction is one of frustration.

That's where we've been.  For a very long time. 

Yesterday's post gave us both the key to unlocking the puzzle that has so baffled us.  Finally, I found enough words to clearly explain what I've needed and what might work.  Armed with that tiny, little bit of information, He took us both into a wonderful session and subsequent love-making that brought us together to a peak we haven't reached in a very long time...leaving me walking around in my own mind going "WOW!"  Just "WOW!"

He started out, simply enough, just stroking my skin, my face, my back -- finding, as He went, places that tickle.  I am not particularly ticklish, but when He stumbles onto a tickly spot, it just destroys me.  Tickling makes me giggly, silly, and leaves me feeling very girlish. I will always protest, "no tickling!"  It is a wildly vulnerable place for me, and I like it and resist it with almost equal fervor...  Which, of course causes Him to take particular note of those places.  Of course.

Nipples.  Next.  Yes.  Sucking and nuzzling.  Still nothing very intense, but my whole body felt awake and alive and eager.  Easy.  That would be me.  Really.

He began to slap, very lightly and very gently and very quickly, at my pussy -- and I was immediately entranced, captured by the rhythm and percussive sensations He was creating.  I'm not really "into" gynotorture, but my simplest fantasies almost always involve some sort of pussy spanking -- the sort of thing that verges onto painful, but is way more about control and vulnerability than pain.  This was right there for me...  more breath-taking than miserable; more intensely connective than painfully demanding.  By the time He was ready to move onto spanking, I was gasping, writhing with need and desire and wanting.

And, so we came to the SM that is foundational between us...  Still in our bed, and over the "spanking" pillow, I was not afraid, not despairing, not panicked, not feeling somehow defeated before we began.  Instead, I was eager to go where He would take me, sure that He would manage it all and keep me safe.  Already a little "out there," the endorphin cocktail was at work in my bloodstream and brain.  I am "sloppy" when I fly.  I tend to drool and slobber and jabber away incoherently.  I can hear the words in my head, but the sounds that I make sound garbled and muddy in my ears.  I know that I felt more curious than I usually do in session.  There were sensations that I just couldn't match up with any of the implements we have.  Once or twice, I think I asked Him, "What is that?  What IS that?"  With one paddle, I was totally amazed when He showed it to me -- it is a round, fairly thick piece, made of pine.  It has the BDSM logo on its surface.  We rarely use it, and I would have sworn that it was some sort of smallish, rectangularly shaped, long, thin bit.  How very odd -- that discrepancy between the reality and the physical impression. 
He spent some time, making rapid fire strokes with our old, wonderful rattan cane.  I got that it was some sort of "stick" thing, but again, couldn't identify it exactly.  He went easy with the cane.  There were very few full on cane strokes, and only the cumulative fire of those many, many whippy little tattoo beats. 
In between, He'd rub me and stroke me and spank me with His hands.  I felt Him reaching out to me and grounding me with His touch, and it both calmed and reassured me.  I knew, in the midst of each of those intervals, that He'd be back with something more intense, but it was all OK.  I was able to rest under His hands and just be there with Him.  No analyzing the earlier bits, and no worrying about the things yet to come...
I kept repeating my "good" session mantra:  "I love You, Sir," over and over and over, but by the time He got to His newest, current favorite paddles, I think I was reduced to only "Sir! Sir!  Sir!"  It seemed that was all my brain could manage at the end. Can you say, "lalalalalalalala?"  Even that ritualized protocol that requires that I kiss the paddle and thank Him for my spanking seemed a little muzzy.  I'm not sure I got it quite right.  I knew the words, but couldn't seem to form them up.  Whatever I did get out, He seemed satisfied enough. 
He told me I could roll over, and I remember wrestling with the silly pillow, unable to get up off it, and not really able to get it out from under me.  I just couldn't make my limbs work very well.  I think He came and pulled it away and took it to its spot in the corner.  He pulled me in, held me close, and did a bit more pussy whacking...  When we did, finally, make love I was so ready, so eager for Him inside of me.  We rode together to the first shared orgasm we've enjoyed for months and months and months.  When it was all over, I'd have stayed right there, forever, in the magical place He made for us.  I was afraid to move or breathe too much -- not wanting to break the spell...  It was wonderful, and I am anxious to try it all again. 
Thank You, Sir!

swan

Foreplay?

Just a bit ago, morningstar wrote a piece on her blog about "excitement."  Her post caught me on so many levels that I couldn't even begin to respond at the time.  I was angry, confused, frustrated, and completely unable to sort any of it out and make some sort of coherent sense of it all.  Now, a few days later, here's the part that speaks to me --

"They say that sex / orgasms are mostly in the brain........... I think BDSM is mostly in the brain too...... The building of excitement / anticipation is just like really good foreplay ..."

It is no secret to anyone who has read here for any amount of time that I have had my very real struggles with both my sexual response and my BDSM response in the last few years.  I've consistently pointed back to that December 29, 2005 moment when, undergoing a hysterectomy and oophorectomy, I found myself thrust suddenly into the land of menopuasal femaleness.  It was the day that everything changed for me physically and hormonally. It sucked.  It sucks.  There is no going back, and there is no recovering what was lost.  If I had known then what the consequences would be, I'd have never consented to the surgery.  Never. 

However.  I am now convinced, nearly 5 years later, that it isn't all about the hysterectomy.  The fact, that morningstar pointed to, is that (at least for me) sex and BDSM and sex and BDSM and sex and BDSM and sex and BDSM are the same.  Those two things are NOT two things -- not for me.  I am a female and a masochist and, sex and BDSM are wrapped entirely around one another in my experience.  I cannot and do not respond sexually when there is no sadomasochistic valance.  Conversely, I cannot and do not respond masochistically when there is no sexual component.  Plain, old, garden-variety, vanilla sex excites me in exactly the same way as doing the ironing, the dishes, or the floors.  I can do it.  I DO do it.  It is a very "workman-like" sort of task -- get on it, get it done, get on to the next thing.  In the same way, tie me down and beat me SM leaves me empty and sad.  I know there is some sort of soaring and powerful connection to be made, but if I gut it out through a session, telling myself that it doesn't matter, that I'm just a butt (or just a slave), and feeling no sense of male-female connection in the midst of the pain, then there is no joy or release or pleasure for me in the event. 

And...that weird, jumbled up reality just confounds Him.  He doesn't get it; doesn't understand how it works; reads it all as some sort of recalcitrance on my part.  Foreplay, sexual or sadomasochistic, isn't part of our repertoire.  The business of spanking and fucking is just that around here -- all business.  SM isn't supposed to be "pleasurable," and sex is a pretty neat, but very prosaic activity that involves getting Him hard and then getting Him off.

So, my initial visceral response to that post of morningstar's was really a stomping, pissy, mental diatribe with that sort of incredulous sound to it -- "FOREPLAY?  Really?  What the hell?  Who does that?  Waaaaaa, waaaaaa, waaaaa!  Poor, poor, pitiful me..." 

I don't know.  He claims I don't tell Him what to do, or what I want.  He feels frustrated that I can't give Him specifics and some sort of road map -- touch here and rub there...  I wish we could explore more -- slowly and tentatively and without some rush to "get there," and "get on" with the REAL stuff.  He just wants to know what to do -- how to FIX this.  How "guy" is that? 

I don't know -- Google really isn't much help here.  There is no how to do good foreplay in 10 easy lessons book or website (at least not that I can find).  Somedays, like today, I feel pretty hopeless about the whole business.  After all, I'm 55 -- not some cute, young honey just starting out.  It is way too late to be renegotiating the whole sex thing with a lover and a Master.  There are lots of things that are in the rearview window of my life -- I'm never going to play concert piano, and I'm not likely to ever get to the summit of Mt. Everest, and I'll never travel the world.  There comes a time when a person ought to just grow up and live the life that is -- and this is a good life.  I am well and healthy and I have people who love me.  I have work that matters, and that I enjoy.  My home is comfortable.  My kids are grown and good.  It ought to be enough. 

swan

Empty Classroom

There are so many calendars by which we humans measure the passing of time.  In our western culture, we measure the year from January to December and think that is THE calendar.  But of course it isn't.  There are calendars that mark the passing of fiscal matters, and they start and end quite often in months not designated by our traditional Gregorian calendar.  There are, for those of us who work and live in the U.S., the tax year, and that calendar has its own peculiarities.  Too, our multi-cultural society includes those who may mark the flight of days and years by calendars based on the cycles of the moon rather than the sun, and so their days and weeks and years are "other" than what is the norm for the majority.  However that all plays out, there are those of us who live lives centered around schools and teaching, and whatever the rest of the world believes about the date, our calendars begin and end each year with empty classrooms. 

The empty classroom that is mine at the end of August is a space filled with anticipation.  It lies quiet but vibrant, awaiting only the arrival of the children who will fill it up with lively curiosity and joyful growing.  Throughout the year, as we move from month to month and topic to topic, there are days (I'll confess) when my classroom seems full to overflowing -- full of bodies growing into adolescence; full of projects and posters and the things that a gaggle of youngsters bring with them into their daily lives; full of desks and chairs and backpacks and coats -- and the ever present litter of papers and crayons and erasers and whatnot.  We work in that busy and crowded space, sharing the work and the triumphs, crying and laughing together, building and shaping a small community inside those walls.  The days can fly by sometimes, and then there are the weeks that seem to never end.  Still, springtime arrives, exactly as promised, and we run out of days together -- work that is well done, and work that remains unfinished or barely begun; it matters not.  The school year ends, and the children pack their bags, and troop off amidst ringing goodbyes and tearful hugs and promises to meet again in the fall...  And I am left, always on this day, with soft memories, and a deep and aching tiredness -- standing in the middle of my suddenly too quiet and far too empty classroom. 

It is a blur.  When it is all over; when everything is packed away, or draped in dust covers; when the last paper has been handed out and the report cards are distributed; when all the work is done -- then, I am left feeling jubilant but empty, without energy, muddled and befuddled, at a loss for what to do next. 

Mixed up in this time of the year however, is the anniversary date of my move to be here with Master and with T.  Eight years ago, on June 6th, I pulled our pickup truck into the parking lot at the apartment complex where we would live for the first few months of our time in Cincinnati.  It was the culmination of a 21 hour, straight-through without stopping drive across the breadth of the continent -- and it came immediately on the heels of another school year ending in another school far from here.

I never seem to remember the date -- was it the 6th or was it the 8th?  Master and T keep track of it, and I come fuzzily and in a physical/mental/emotional fog to the celebrative moments surrounding that mile marker on our path.  I do rejoice in the fact of that long ago journey, and I do absolutely love the fact of our lives together, but I can't muster much enthusiasm or excitement.  I've use all of that up cheering up and cheering on the young ones given into my care.  As of today, they are launched and it is my sincere hope that the universe is good to them through these warm months of summer.  I know that in a very little bit of time, I'll be back in that same empty classroom working to create the buzz and anticipation that will bring me a brand new group in the fall...

For now, I have a cold Harp Lager and a quiet house.  There are a gazillion things for me to do around this house we share, but there will be time for all of that.  Tonight I have no papers to grade and no lessons to plan and not a single email from a student or a parent wondering about whatever it is that we are doing. 

So my year ends.  So the new year begins.  Right here where eight years ago, I took my first steps into this life I chose.

swan

Straight

In a couple of weeks, we'll be taking part in one of the bigger gay pride events in our area.  It will be the third year that we've ridden in the parade, and it is always a great time...  For us, it is one more opportunity to be immersed in the alternative side of our society, to support those who are commonly marginalized by our society, and to declare in some small way our own dreams and hopes for the way the world might someday come to be.

Still, there is an interesting twist to the day for us.  It puts us into a situation where many, many people just assume, looking at the three of us, that T and I are somehow lesbian, or at the very least, bisexual.  We find ourselves feeling it almost necessary to declare the "who" of what we are, and for some reason, that declaration almost always shows up as a negative rather than a positive. 

It isn't sufficient to simply say that we are "heterosexual."  People tend to assume that we are lying or in denial when we say that.  After all, we are self-identified poly people, and everyone knows that to be "truly" poly, people have to be bi -- or at least bi-curious.  How can the three of us, and especially the two of us (T and I) be straight???  How!??!?  After all, bisexuality is the new black; everybody is doing it.  T and I might be the only two purely and avowed straight women in America.

It gets back to the ongoing argument about whether one can have a poly relationship that is not overtly sexual.  We say, "yes," but we tend to find ourselves in a distinct minority.  Ahhhh, well.  We are what we are, and that is heterosexual.  Not bisexual, and not bi-curious.

We'll be there at the parade in a couple of weeks, marching for the rights of all adult people to be exactly who they are, and to love exactly as they choose.  That would include even us -- poor, mis-guided heterosexual and poly types.

swan

Sad Memorial Day

Yesterday we learned that a dear friend had died. No warning. He is just gone. He was a 38 yr old dad of 2 who loved his family and his work. He was our banker and our friend.

He was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, an Interstitial Lung Disease, a few years ago and was nearing the time of needing a lung transplant. He never smoked or worked in a place that would do lung damage. He didn't talk about it. He thought everyone else was more interesting than himself. And now he is gone.

Apparently he went into the hospital a week ago, his family flew in from Turkey and he passed Friday.

This has hit me particularly hard. My Mom has an Interstitial Lung Disease. When Tom told him about Mom, he replied, "That is what I have, you know..." and shook his head. I have held onto the fact that he looked so well and functioned normally. Clung to it, in fact. If he could do so well..... well, Mom should weather it just fine, too. And today we memorialized him and I know that Mom is not invulnerable.

His wife clung to each and every person who came to honor his life. We were all his friends. The room was overflowing with friends and family, young and old, all mourning the loss of a wonderful man who died too soon.

It is a sad day in Heron-land.

Rest well my friend.

T

Troubador

Last night, we had an absolutely delightful and wonderful time.  We traveled north to Columbus to take part in the "local" version of the James Taylor and Carole King Troubador Reunion Tour.  Starting at about 7:45 in the evening, the two gave a mind-blowing, nearly three hour long performance that, for people our age, was some sort of magical concoction of nostalgia, music history, and just plain old fashioned classic rock and roll party.  What a great, great evening it was!



We had seats that were WAAAAYYYYYYY up in the top of the arena, but for this show - with its theater in the round stage, and giant screen displays, that distance was really no issue -- and the music was spectacular.  There is something truly magical when these two get together to make music, and the clear and apparent affection they have for one another only enhances the experience.  Backed by three of the original band from their first Troubador performance, and a variety of backup singers with long histories of performing with one or the other of the two.  Amazing!

James is now 62 and Carole is 68. I'd have defied anyone to guess their ages based on their antics in concert.  Carole dances and rocks the place in her high, spiked heels, and never seems to miss a beat.  Taylor still seems almost shy as he weaves his music into the story of his life -- every bit the poet, even after all these years...

Figuring our longish drive home after our very full evening, and a bit of time, once we got here to settle down and decompress..., and we were late; no LATE, by the time we got to bed.  Today, predictably, we are tired and mostly trying to recover.  I can only imagine how tired the two of them must be.

swan

We played yesterday afternoon. 

I had a hard time settling into it.  Even as He started off slowly with lots of light and low-intensity implements, and lots of stroking, I was crunched down in some dark corner of my mind trying to prepare myself for a repeat of Tuesday night.  It took me awhile to catch on to the reality that we weren't just going to paddle and paddle and paddle and paddle.  Then, I had to somehow navigate a sense of guilt that I "made Him do it this way instead of that way..."  and round and round and round, until I finally quieted all the ornery voices and just came into the moment with Him.

That's when I noticed His hand; planted gently in the center of my back.  He wasn't really holding me down or in position so much as He was just maintaining a steady contact with me and my skin.  I became completely entranced by the weight of it, lying there so steadily -- and then I began to circle around the warmth that was emanating from His hand into my body and into my being. 

It's an old and well-known massage technique -- maintain contact with your subject; never lift your hand off until you've made contact with your other hand; stay in touch. I learned it long ago when I practiced massage with my infant children.  I'm not sure that He's ever heard of that practice, or been taught it by anyone, and yet when I asked Him why He kept His hand on me, He told me it was because I'd said I needed Him to do that. 

Really?  I don't remember telling Him that, although it feels true inside of me.  That warm, steady pressure kept me focused, and as He ratcheted up the intensity of what He was doing, I was able to stay in touch with Him and be there and not be afraid. 

There is so much to personal power that we don't completely understand.  That ability to settle my wayward mind and prickly heart with just a touch, is just one more piece of the picture.

swan